T Senescyt 000418 PDF

Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica
Ano2013
Mario Alejandro SEWAGE SLUDGE DRYING AND COMBUSTION

Heredia Salgado
Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica
Ano 2013
Mario Alejandro SECAGEM E COMBUSTAO DE LAMAS BIOLÓGICAS

Heredia Salgado
Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos

requisitos necessários à obtenção do grau de Mestre em Sistemas Energéticos
Sustentáveis, realizada sob a orientação científica do Doutor Luís António da
Cruz Tarelho, Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Ambiente e Ordenamento
da Universidade de Aveiro, e co-orientação científica do Doutor Fernando José
Neto da Silva, Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica da
Universidade de Aveiro.
This work was carried out within the

Convocatoria Abierta 2011 by a
scholarship granted by the Secretaria
de Educacion Superior, Ciencia
Tecnologia e Innovacion SENESCYT,
funded by the Government of the
Republic of Ecuador.
This work was done in the scope of

research project “BiomAshTech – Ash
impacts during thermochemical
conversion of biomass”,
PTDC/AACAMB/116568/2010 -
FCOMP-01-0124-FEDER-019346, with
financial support from FEDER funds
through the Operational
Competitiveness Programme -
COMPETE and by National Funds
through FCT – Fundação para a
Ciência e a Tecnologia, Portugal
o júri
Presidente Professor Doutor Nelson Amadeu Dias Martins

Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica da Universidade de Aveiro
Vogais Professor Doutor Luís António da Cruz Tarelho

Professor Auxiliar do Departamento de Ambiente e Ordenamento da Universidade de Aveiro
(Orientador)
Professor Doutor Mário Manuel Gonçalves da Costa

Professor Associado com Agregação do Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica do Instituto
Superior Técnico (Arguente)
acknowledgement I thank all anonymous Ecuadorian citizens that through the figure of
SENESCYT made possible the realization of this work. I also thank the
teaching staff of the University of Aveiro in particular Professor Luís Tarelho by
the passion with which he works day after day; passion is contagious.
To my parents for freedom as heritage. To my brother Adrian and my sister

Estefania by infinity and selfless love. To Carolina for the patience. To my
Brazilian friends for the warm welcome and contributions to the heart. To
leaders of the HortUA project through which I met wonderful people. From the
depths of me, many thanks.
keywords Sewage sludge, co-combustion, artificial neural networks, sludge drying
kinetics.
abstract A brief review of the paper pulp production process in order to understand the
origin of the sewage sludge was performed. Then a general revision of the
current treatment options for this type of waste was addressed. The thermal
treatment by combustion was focused and a review of the state of the art of this
process was performed. The high moisture content of sludge was identified as
a major concern. Thus a revision of the state of the art regarding thermal drying
of sewage sludge was performed. The drying behavior of sewage sludge from
the pulp and paper industry was evaluated by experiment in a drying tunnel.
Strong shrinkage, cracks and a weak crust phenomenon were identified. A
drying kinetic model was developed by the use of Artificial Neural Networks
achieving a high Pearson correlation coefficient in the validation tests.
Additionally a theoretical assessment of the co-combustion process was
performed having into account a 50 MWth combustion facility. The inclusion of
different portions of sewage sludge in a fuel mixture and the influence of the
sludge moisture content was studied. It was found that burning sewage sludge
with more than 50 wt% moisture content is not possible. Furthermore the
inclusion of sewage sludge in a biomass fuel mixture causes an increase in the
fuel consumption, solids production and heat losses in the flue gas. Based on
general thermodynamic considerations the thermal power of a sludge dryer
was calculated. The use of waste heat to supply the energy needs of the drying
process was addressed by the waste heat availability estimation as sensible
heat and latent heat at the stack of the facility. A set of combustion experiments
were done in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed combustor to assess the
combustion efficiency by monitoring the CO2, CO, H2O and O2 levels in
conjunction with the temperature profile along the reactor height. Two different
types of fuel samples were prepared. One composed by 100 wt% sewage
sludge (fuel sample 1) and other composed by 50 wt% sewage sludge and 50
wt% residual forest biomass (particle size <1mm) (fuel sample 2). Low CO
levels were onserved especially for the fuel sample 2 which indicates a very
efficient combustion process. The CO emission level established by the
Portuguese law for this type of reactor was never exceeded under typical
operating conditions. The temperature profile along the reactor confirms that
the combustion of the fuel samples prepared occurs mainly in the freeboard
zone. It was not observed agglomeration problems and the fluidization
conditions were kept constant during all the experimental tests. After the
combustion experiments a considerable ashes quantity were found and its
particle size distribution was estimated.
palavras-chave Lamas secundarias, co-combustão, redes neuronais artificiais,cinética de
secagem.
resumo Foi realizada uma revisão sucinta do processo de produção de pasta de papel,
a fim de compreender a origem da lama biológica. Uma revisão geral das
opções atuais de tratamento para este tipo de resíduo foi abordada. O
tratamento térmico por combustão foi focalizado e uma avaliação do estado da
arte deste processo foi realizada. Foi verificado que o elevado teor de
humidade da lama representa uma grande preocupação. Por tanto, realizou-se
uma revisão do estado da arte em relação à secagem térmica das lamas. O
comportamento da lama secundaria da indústria de pasta e papel foi estudado
experimentalmente em um túnel de secagem. Foram observados os
fenómenos de encolhimento e rachaduras além do fenomeno de crosta,
embora este último não seja muito pronunciado. Foi desenvolvido um modelo
de cinética de secagem com recurso ao uso de Redes Neurais Artificiais,
sendo observado um elevado coeficiente de correlação nas experiências de
validação. Foi realizada uma análise teórica ao processo de co-combustão de
lama com biomassa florestal numa instalação de combustão de 50MW th.
Estudou-se a inclusão de diferentes fracções de lama numa mistura de
combustível contendo biomassa florestal, assim como também a influência do
teor de humidade da lama. Verificou-se que a combustão de lamas biológicas
com mais do que 50 wt% em teor de humidade não é possível. Além disso, a
inclusão destas lamas na mistura de combustível provoca um aumento do
consumo de combustível na instalação, da produção de sólidos e das perdas
de calor no efluente gasoso da instalação. Com base em considerações
termodinâmicas foi determinada a potência térmica de um secador de lamas. A
utilização do calor residual para suprir as necessidades energéticas do
processo de secagem foi abordada a través da estimativa da disponibilidade
de calor residual na forma de calor sensível e calor latente no efluente gasoso
da instalação de combustão. Foi realizado um conjunto de experiências de
combustão de lamas e sua mistura com biomassa florestal num reactor de leito
fluidizado borbulhante á escala piloto para avaliar a eficiência de combustão
através da concentração de CO2, CO, O2 e H2O, em conjunto com o perfil de
temperaturas ao longo do reactor. Foram utilizados dois tipos diferentes de
amostras de combustível, uma composta por 100 wt% de lama biológica
(combustível 1), e outra composta por 50 wt% de lama biológica e 50 wt% de
biomassa florestal residual (tamanho de partícula <1mm) (combustível 2).
Foram observados baixos níveis de CO no efluente gasoso, emparticular para
a amostra de combustível 2, o qual indica um processo de combustão muito
eficiente. Para condições de operação (temperatura e estequimetria) típicas,
verificou-se que o limite de emissão de CO estabelecido pela lei Portuguesa
para este tipo de fornalhas não foi excedido. O perfil de temperatura ao longo
do reactor confirma que a combustão das amostras de combustível preparadas
ocorre principalmente na zona do freeboard. Não foram verificados problemas
de aglomeração e as condições de fluidização foram mantidas constantes
durante todos os ensaios experimentais. Após os ensaios de combustão foi
observada uma quantidade considerável de cinzas na fornalha, tendo sido
avaliada a sua distribuição granulométrica.
Sewage Sludge drying and combustion
Contents
1 Introduction ................................................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1 PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY ................................................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.1 Paper pulp production process ............................................................................................................................... 2
1.1.1.1 Chemical digestion ................................................................................................................................................................ 3
1.1.1.1.1 Sewage sludge produced by the pulp and paper industry .............................................................................................. 3
1.2 MAIN OBJECTIVES ............................................................................................................................................................... 5
2 Sewage sludge treatment in the pulp and paper industry .............................................................................................. 7
2.1 OPTIONS FOR SEWAGE SLUDGE TREATMENT .............................................................................................................................. 8
2.1.1 Vitrification ............................................................................................................................................................. 8
2.1.2 Recycling in agriculture .......................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1.3 Landfill disposal ...................................................................................................................................................... 9
2.1.4 Waste to energy ................................................................................................................................................... 10
2.1.4.1 Co – combustion of sewage sludge in fluidized bed reactor ............................................................................................... 11
2.2 SEWAGE SLUDGE DRYING .................................................................................................................................................... 13
2.2.1 Sludge drying processes ........................................................................................................................................ 14
2.2.2 Drying insights ...................................................................................................................................................... 16
2.2.2.1 Sludge drying kinetics ......................................................................................................................................................... 18
2.2.2.2 Artificial neural networks .................................................................................................................................................... 20
2.2.2.2.1 ANN architecture........................................................................................................................................................... 21
2.3 HEAT RECOVERY ................................................................................................................................................................ 23
2.3.1 Heat recovery asses .............................................................................................................................................. 24
2.3.1.1 Heat quantity ...................................................................................................................................................................... 24
2.3.1.2 Waste heat temperature: quality ....................................................................................................................................... 24
2.3.1.3 Waste stream composition ................................................................................................................................................. 25
2.3.1.4 Minimum allowable temperature ....................................................................................................................................... 25
2.3.1.5 Economies of scale, accessibility and other factors ............................................................................................................ 26
2.3.2 Heat recovery technologies .................................................................................................................................. 26
2.3.3 Barriers for promoting waste heat recovery practices ......................................................................................... 27
3 Combustion of biomass and sludge for heat and power production: theoretical approach .......................................... 28
3.1 MASS BALANCE ................................................................................................................................................................ 28
3.1.1 Proximate and elemental fuel analysis ................................................................................................................. 28
3.1.2 Calorific value of the fuel ...................................................................................................................................... 28
3.1.3 Air consumption.................................................................................................................................................... 29
3.1.4 Flue gas composition ............................................................................................................................................ 30
3.2 ENERGY BALANCE .............................................................................................................................................................. 31
3.3 INDUSTRIAL FACILITY OF 50 MWTH ....................................................................................................................................... 33
3.3.1 Drying approach ................................................................................................................................................... 33
3.4 MODEL OUTPUTS .............................................................................................................................................................. 34
3.4.1 Useful energy analysis .......................................................................................................................................... 34
3.4.2 Flue gas composition ............................................................................................................................................ 35
3.4.3 Analysis of a 50MWth facility ................................................................................................................................ 38
3.4.3.1 Waste heat assess ............................................................................................................................................................... 39
3.4.3.1.1 Energy content in the flue gas ....................................................................................................................................... 40
3.4.3.1.2 Heat requirements for the drying process .................................................................................................................... 41
4 Drying experiments ...................................................................................................................................................... 43

4.1 PROBLEM DEFINITION ......................................................................................................................................................... 43
4.2 DATABASE ACQUISITION...................................................................................................................................................... 43
4.2.1 The Taguchi method ............................................................................................................................................. 43
4.2.2 Convective drying experimental station ............................................................................................................... 45
4.2.2.1 Ventilation system .............................................................................................................................................................. 46
4.2.2.2 Heating system ................................................................................................................................................................... 46
4.2.2.3 Humidification system ........................................................................................................................................................ 46
4.2.2.4 Cooling/dehumidification system ....................................................................................................................................... 46
4.2.2.5 Hardware and software platforms ...................................................................................................................................... 47
4.2.2.6 Auxiliary equipments .......................................................................................................................................................... 48
Universidade de Aveiro i
Mario Alejandro Heredia Salgado
4.2.2.6.1 Oven .............................................................................................................................................................................. 48

4.2.2.6.2 Metallic containers ........................................................................................................................................................ 48
4.2.2.6.3 Aluminium container ..................................................................................................................................................... 49
4.2.2.6.4 Desiccator...................................................................................................................................................................... 49
4.2.2.6.5 Mass scale ..................................................................................................................................................................... 49
4.2.3 Experimental proceedings .................................................................................................................................... 49
4.2.3.1 Sewage sludge behavior during drying experiments .......................................................................................................... 50
4.3 EXPERIMENTAL RESULTS: DATA PREPROCESSING....................................................................................................................... 52
4.4 NETWORK ARCHITECTURE DEFINITION.................................................................................................................................... 54
4.5 TESTING AND VALIDATION ................................................................................................................................................... 55
5 Combustion experiments ............................................................................................................................................. 58
5.1 FUEL SAMPLE 1 ................................................................................................................................................................. 58
5.2 FUEL SAMPLE 2 ................................................................................................................................................................. 59
5.3 MOISTURE, ORGANIC MATTER AND ASH CONTENT OF THE FUEL SAMPLES ...................................................................................... 60
5.4 EXPERIMENTAL FACILITY: PILOT-SCALE BUBBLING FLUIDIZED BED COMBUSTOR ............................................................................... 62
5.4.1 Reactor setup ........................................................................................................................................................ 64
5.5 COMBUSTION EXPERIMENTS ................................................................................................................................................ 65
5.5.1 Temperature profiles ............................................................................................................................................ 74
5.5.2 Solid products of combustion ............................................................................................................................... 76
6 Concluding remarks ...................................................................................................................................................... 81
7 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................................................. 85
8 Appendix ...................................................................................................................................................................... 89
8.1 APPENDIX 1: MATLAB SOURCE CODE OF THE MASS AND ENERGY BALANCE .................................................................................. 89
8.2 APPENDIX 2: RESULTS OF THE DRYING EXPERIMENTS AT THE TUNNEL UNDER THE TAGUCHI METHODS ................................................ 98
8.3 APPENDIX 3: MATLAB SOURCE CODE OF THE ARTIFICIAL NEURAL NETWORK MODEL ....................................................................103
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica ii

Index of figures
FIGURE 2.1 - UP: DIRECT SLUDGE DRYING SYSTEM. DOWN: INDIRECT SLUDGE DRYING SYSTEM. SOURCE:(SIEMENS WATER
TECHNOLOGIES CORP, 2008). ................................................................................................................... 15
FIGURE 2.2 - TYPICAL DRYING CURVES. SOURCE(PARK, 2007). ................................................................................ 17
FIGURE 3.1 - USEFUL ENERGY [MJ·KG FUELDB-1] VS. BIOMASS PERCENTAGE [WT%] IN THE FUEL MIXTURE (BIOMASS +
SLUDGE). COMBUSTION GASES TEMPERATURE IN THE FURNACE IS 800ºC, AND EXHAUST GASES TEMPERATURE AFTER
HEAT RECOVERING IS 150ºC. ..................................................................................................................... 35
3 -1
FIGURE 3.2 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION (WET GASES) [NM ·KG FUELDB ] VS. BIOMASS FRACTION PERCENTAGE [WT%] IN THE
FUEL MIXTURE. THE MOISTURE CONTENT WAS FIXED IN 40 WT% FOR THE BIOMASS AND 75 WT% FOR THE SLUDGE. ... 36
3 -1
FIGURE 3.3 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION (WET GASES) [NM ·KG FUELDB] VS. BIOMASS FRACTION IN THE FINAL FUEL [WT%]
(THE MOISTURE CONTENT WAS FIXED IN 40 WT% FOR THE BIOMASS AND 35 WT% FOR THE SLUDGE). ..................... 37
FIGURE 3.4 - SOLIDS PRODUCTION RATE (BOTTOM AND FLY ASH) [KG ASH·KG FUELDB-1] VS. BIOMASS PERCENTAGE [WT%] IN
THE FUEL MIXTURE. THE MOISTURE CONTENT WAS FIXED IN 40 WT% FOR THE BIOMASS AND 75 WT% FOR THE SLUDGE.
............................................................................................................................................................ 38
FIGURE 3.5 - FUEL MIXTURE FEED RATE [TARB/H] VS. BIOMASS PERCENTAGE [WT%] IN THE FUEL MIXTURE FOR DIFFERENT
SLUDGE MOISTURE CONTENTS (10, 30, 50 WT%). THE BIOMASS MOISTURE CONTENT WAS CONSIDERED AS 40 WT%. 39
FIGURE 3.6 - SENSIBLE AND LATENT HEAT IN THE FLUE GAS [MW] VS. BIOMASS PERCENTAGE [WT%] IN THE FUEL MIXTURE.
FLUE GAS TEMPERATURE CONSIDERED EQUAL TO 150ºC. ................................................................................ 40
FIGURE 3.7 - SLUDGE DRYER THERMAL POWER [MW] VS. SLUDGE MOISTURE CONTENT [WT%] FOR DIFFERENT CO-
COMBUSTION CASES, THAT IS, DISTINCT PERCENTAGES OF RESIDUAL FOREST BIOMASS AND SEWAGE SLUDGE IN THE FUEL
MIXTURE. ............................................................................................................................................... 42
FIGURE 4.1 - VIEW OF THE DRYING STATION USED TO PERFORM THE DRYING EXPERIMENTS. SOURCE: (PINHO, 2012). ....... 46
FIGURE 4.2 - SCHEMATIC OF THE DRYING STATION USED TO PERFORM THE DRYING EXPERIMENTS. SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM
(BOERI, 2012). ...................................................................................................................................... 47
FIGURE 4.3 - SCHEMATIC OF THE INSTRUMENTATION AT DRYING TUNNEL. SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM (BOERI, 2012). ......... 48
FIGURE 4.4 - CRACK FORMATION AND CURVE UPWARD OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE (4 HOURS AT 60ºC) ............................... 51
FIGURE 4.5 - SHRINKAGE PHENOMENA AND VOLUME REDUCTION OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE AFTER A DRYING EXPERIMENT (4,5
HOURS AT 60ºC). .................................................................................................................................... 51
FIGURE 4.6 - REPRESENTATION OF THE VALIDATION EXPERIMENTS IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE FORECAST CURVE GIVEN BY THE
ANN MODEL. ......................................................................................................................................... 56
FIGURE 5.1 - MACROSCOPIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FUEL SAMPLE 1. ........................................................................... 59
FIGURE 5.2 - MACROSCOPIC CHARACTERISTICS OF FUEL SAMPLE 2. ........................................................................... 60
FIGURE 5.3 - SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE PILOT SCALE INSTALLATION. DASHED LINE – ELECTRIC CIRCUIT,
CONTINUOUS LINE – PNEUMATIC CIRCUIT, A – PRIMARY AIR HEATING SYSTEM, B – SAND BED, C – BED SOLIDS LEVEL
CONTROL, D – BED SOLIDS DISCHARGE, E – BED SOLIDS DISCHARGE SILO, F – PROPANE BURNER SYSTEM, G – PORT FOR
VISUALIZATION OF BED SURFACE, H – AIR FLOW METER (PRIMARY AND SECONDARY AIR), I – CONTROL AND COMMAND
UNIT (UCC2), J – BIOMASS FEEDER, K – WATER COOLED GAS SAMPLING PROBE, L,M,P,Q – COMMAND AND GAS
DISTRIBUTION UNITS (UCD0, UCD1, UCD2, UCD3), N – GAS SAMPLING PUMP, O – GAS CONDENSATION UNIT FOR
MOISTURE REMOVAL, R,S,T,U,V,W – AUTOMATIC ON LINE GAS ANALYZERS (HC, NO, CO2, N2O, O2, CO), X –
ELECTRONIC COMMAND UNIT (UCE1), Y – COMPUTER DATA ACQUISITION AND CONTROL SYSTEM, Z – EXHAUST DUCT
TO CYCLONE AND BAG-HOUSE FILTER. SOURCE: (TARELHO, NEVES, & MATOS, 2011). ......................................... 63
FIGURE 5.4 - SCHEMATIC REPRESENTATION OF THE FLUE GASES HEATED SAMPLING LINE................................................ 63
FIGURE 5.5 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION DURING THE COMBUSTION OF RESIDUAL FOREST BIOMASS DERIVED FROM EUCALYPTUS,
UNDER TYPICAL STOICHIOMETRIC CONDITIONS. .............................................................................................. 66
FIGURE 5.6 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION DURING THE COMBUSTION OF FUEL SAMPLE 1 UNDER TYPICAL STOICHIOMETRIC
CONDITIONS. .......................................................................................................................................... 68
FIGURE 5.7 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION DURING COMBUSTION OF FUEL SAMPLE 1 WITH REDUCED STOICHIOMETRY. ............. 69
FIGURE 5.8 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION DURING COMBUSTION OF FUEL SAMPLE 2 UNDER TYPICAL STOICHIOMETRIC
CONDITIONS. .......................................................................................................................................... 71
FIGURE 5.9 - FLUE GAS COMPOSITION DURING COMBUSTION OF FUEL SAMPLE 2 WITH REDUCED STOICHIOMETRY. ............. 72
FIGURE 5.10 - COMPARISON OF AVERAGE CO CONCENTRATION IN THE FLUE GAS [MG·NM-3] CORRECTED FOR AN 11% OF O2
DRY GASES VS. AVERAGE O2 CONCENTRATION [%V] MEASURED FOR EACH COMBUSTION PERIOD. ............................ 73
Universidade de Aveiro iii

FIGURE 5.11 - TEMPERATURE INSIDE THE REACTOR ALONG THE TIME FOR THE SET OF EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS ANALYSED
BEFORE AND CORRESPONDING TO SOME DATA PRESENTED IN FIGURES 5.5 (PERIOD1), 5.6 (PERIOD 2), 5.7 (PERIOD 3),
5.8 (PERIOD 4) AND 5.9 (PERIOD 5), AT SEVERAL LOCATIONS ALONG THE REACTOR HEIGHT. .................................. 75
FIGURE 5.12 - TEMPERATURE PROFILE (BASED ON AVERAGE OF TEMPERATURES ALONG THE TIME (FIG 5.10)) ALONG THE
REACTOR HEIGHT FOR THE SET OF EXPERIMENTS ANALYSED BEFORE AND CORRESPONDING TO (PERIOD 1), 5.6 (PERIOD
2), 5.7 (PERIOD 3), 5.8 (PERIOD 4) AND 5.9 (PERIOD 5), AT SEVERAL LOCATIONS ALONG THE REACTOR HEIGHT. ....... 76
FIGURE 5.13 - BED LOOK AFTER THE COMBUSTION EXPERIMENTS. ............................................................................ 77
FIGURE 5.14 - FLY ASH DEPOSITION AT THE EXHAUST GAS DUCT. .............................................................................. 77
FIGURE 5.15 - ASH DEPOSITION AT THE ZIRCONIA CELL TIP AND AT FLUE GAS SAMPLING PROBE TIP.................................. 78
FIGURE 5.16 - LOOK AT THE TOP OF THE REACTOR AFTER THE COMBUSTION EXPERIMENTS............................................. 78
FIGURE 5.17 - ASH DEPOSITION ALONG THE FUEL DISCHARGE DUCT LOCATED INSIDE THE REACTOR (FIGURE 5.3). THE TUBE
SIDE LOCATED NEAR THE BED SURFACE IS AT THE TOP OF THE PICTURE. TOTAL LENGTH OF THE TUBE IS 2 M. ............... 79
FIGURE 8.1 - DRYING KINETIC OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE UNDER THE TAGUCHI METHODS (1). ........................................... 98
FIGURE 8.5 - DRYING KINETIC OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE UNDER THE TAGUCHI METHODS (5). ......................................... 100
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica iv

Index of tables
TABLE 2.1 - WASTES SPECIFIC PRODUCTION OF THE PULP FACTORIES IN [KG·TAD-1]. SOURCE:(BATISTA, 2013). ................... 7
TABLE 2.2 – MATLAB AVAILABLE TRANSFER FUNCTIONS. SOURCE:(GONÇALVES, 2012).............................................. 22
TABLE 2.3 – MATLAB AVAILABLE TRAINING ALGORITHMS. SOURCE:(GONÇALVES, 2012). ........................................... 23
TABLE 2.4 – WASTE HEAT CATEGORIES CLASSIFIED BY TEMPERATURE. SOURCE:(ENERGY DESIGN RESOURCES, 2009). ........ 25
TABLE 3.1– PROXIMATE AND ELEMENTAL ANALYSIS OF BIOMASS AND SEWAGE SLUDGE AT A PULP AND PAPER INDUSTRY.
SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM (SANTOS, 2012). ................................................................................................. 29
TABLE 3.2 – CARBON LHV AT 25ºC AND AVERAGE SPECIFIC HEAT VALUES OF COMBUSTION GASES, ASH AND SLAGS FOR A
TEMPERATURE OF 423K, RELATIVE TO 298K. SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM(SPIERS, 1977). ....................................... 32
TABLE 3.3 – PARAMETERS CONSIDERED FOR THE DRYING CALCULATIONS. SOURCE: ADAPTED FROM (STASTA ET AL., 2006B).
............................................................................................................................................................ 34
TABLE 4.1– CONTROL FACTORS AND THEIR CORRESPONDENT LEVELS ESTABLISHED FOR THE DRYING MODEL CONSTRUCTION. 44
TABLE 4.2 – ORTHOGONAL MATRIX DESIGN REPRESENTING THE EXPERIMENTAL CONDITIONS FOR EACH EXPERIMENT. ......... 45
TABLE 4.3 – EXPERIMENTAL DESIGN FOR THE DRYING MODEL VALIDATION EXPERIMENTS............................................... 45
TABLE 4.4 – INITIAL AND FINAL MOISTURE CONTENT OF THE SEWAGE SLUDGE SAMPLES AFTER THE EXPERIMENTS AT THE
-1
TUNNEL. MOISTURE CONTENT EXPRESSED AS WEIGH RATIO, DRY BASIS [KGH2O·KGSLUDGE DB ]. ................................. 53
TABLE 4.5– FINAL MOISTURE CONTENT OF THE SEWAGE SLUDGE SAMPLES AFTER THE EXPERIMENTS AT THE TUNNEL.
MOISTURE CONTENT EXPRESSED IN WET BASIS [WT%]. ................................................................................... 54
TABLE 4.6 – PEARSON CORRELATION COEFFICIENT OBTAINED FOR THE VALIDATION EXPERIMENTS. .................................. 57
TABLE 4.7 – FINAL MOISTURE CONTENT OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE CALCULATED BY THE ANN MODEL AND FINAL MOISTURE
CONTENT OF THE SLUDGE SAMPLE OBTAINED BY EXPERIMENTATION ................................................................... 57
TABLE 5.1 - GRANULOMETRIC DISTRIBUTION OF THE FUEL SAMPLE 1. ........................................................................ 58
TABLE 5.2 – MOISTURE CONTENT OF THE FUEL SAMPLES IN AS RECEIVED BASIS AND ORGANIC MATTER AND ASH CONTENT OF
THE FUEL SAMPLES IN DRY BASIS ................................................................................................................. 61
TABLE 5.3 – PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF THE FIRST WITHDRAWN OF THE BOTTOM BED DURING COMBUSTION OF SEWAGE
SLUDGE (FUEL SAMPLE 1). ......................................................................................................................... 79
TABLE 5.4 – PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF A BED SAMPLE WITHDRAWN DURING THE COMBUSTION OF FUEL MIXTURE OF
BIOMASS AND SLUDGE (FUEL SAMPLE 2)....................................................................................................... 80
TABLE 5.5 – PARTICLE SIZE DISTRIBUTION OF THE BOTTOM BED WITHDRAWN AFTER THE COMBUSTION TESTS, AND DURING THE
REACTOR CLEANING.................................................................................................................................. 80
Universidade de Aveiro v
List of abbreviations
AISI American Iron and Steel Institute

ANN Artificial neural network
WWTP Waste water treatment plant
CELPA Associação da Indústria Papeleira
BFBC Bubbling fluidized bed combustor
CCR Carbon conversion rate
dpb Particle diameter
FTIR Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
analyzer
GDP Gross domestic product
GVA Gross value added
HHV Higher heating value
LCA Life cycle analysis
LHV Lower heating value
pH Hydrogen potential
ppm Parts per million
PVC Polyvinyl Chloride
RAM Random access memory
VC’s Volatile compounds
VFA’s Volatile fatty acids
VOC´s Volatile organic compounds
WTE Waste to energy
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica vi

Chemical nomenclature
C Carbon
C7H16 n-Heptane
CH4 Methane
CO Carbon monoxide
CxHy Hydrocarbons
Fe2+ Magnetite
Fe3+ Hematite
H Hydrogen
N Nitrogen
NH3 Ammonia
NO Nitrogen monoxide
NO2 Nitrogen dioxide
NOx Nitrous oxides
O Oxygen
S Sulfur
SO2 Sulfur dioxide
SOx Sulfur oxides
Universidade de Aveiro vii

Nomenclature
Power of the dryer [kW]
f
Heat flow to remove water from the sludge [kW]
latent
Heat losses in the dryer [kW]
lost
Heat flow transferred to the sludge cake [kW]
sensible
∆HL,products Latent heat of the products [J·kgF-1]
∆HL,reactants Latent heat in the reactants [J·kgF-1]
∆HP Energy in the products [J·kgF-1]
∆HR,products Heat of reaction from products [J·kgF-1]
∆HR,reactants Heat of combustion reaction [J·kgF-1]
∆HS,reactants Sensible heat in the reactants [J·kgF-1]
cpC Specific heat of the Carbon at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpCO2 Specific heat of the Carbon dioxide at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpF Specific heat of the fuel at reference temperature [J·kg-1·K-1]
cpH2O Specific heat of the water at reference temperature [J·kg-1·K-1]
cpH2O(g) Specific heat of water (gas) at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpi Specific heat of the compound i at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpN2 Specific heat of the Nitrogen at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpO2 Specific heat of the Oxygen at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpSludge Specific heat of the sludge at reference [kJ·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpSO2 Specific heat of the Sulfur dioxide at reference [J·kg-1·K-1]
temperature
cpW@25ºC Specific heat of the water at 25ºC [J·kg-1·K-1]
cpz Specific heat of the ashes at reference temperature [J·kg-1·K-1]
Hf Final moisture content of the sample [gH2O·gsludge db-1]
Hi Instantaneous moisture content of the sample [gH2O·gsludge db-1]
Hlost Energy lost [J·kgF-1]
Ho Initial moisture content of the sample [gH2O·gsludge db-1]
Hproducts Energy of the products [J·kgF-1]
Hreactants Energy of the reactants [J·kgF-1]
Huseful Useful energy [J·kgF-1]
hwv,tº Enthalpy of water vaporization [kJ·kg-1]
hwv@60ºC Enthalpy of water vaporization at 60ºC [kJ·kg-1]
LHVC@25ºC Low heating value of the Carbon at 25ºC [J·kg-1]
LHVj Low heating value of the unburned compound j [J·kg-1]
m@105ºC Mass of the sample after the oven at 105ºC [g]
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica viii

MA Air molecular mass [kg·kmol-1]

mf Final mass of the product after oven at 105ºC [g]
ṁfuel,arb Facility fuel consumption in as received basis [kgfuelarb·s-1]
mfueloven@550ºC Mass of the sample after burning in a furnace at [g]
550ºC
Mi Molecular mass of the compound i [kg·kmol-1]
mi Instantaneous mass of the sample during the [g]
experiments in the tunnel
Mj Molecular mass of the element j [kg·kmol-1]
Mm Monolayer moisture
mo Initial mass of the product [g]
MO2 Molecular mass of oxygen [kg·kmol-1]
msf Mass of the sample after the tunnel experiment [g]
mSf Mass of the sample after the experiment at the [g]
tunnel
ṁsludge Sludge mass flow [kgsludgearb·s-1]
mSo Mass of the sample before the experiment at the [g]
tunnel
mw Water mass removed from the product [g]
ṁw,sludge Weight of the corresponding fraction of water in [kgwater·s-1]
the sludge -mass flow-
nCO2 Number of moles of carbon dioxide as effluent [kmolCO2·kgfueldb-1]
nH2O Number of moles of water as effluent [kmolH2O·kgfueldb-1]
niR Number of moles of gas species i as effluent [kmoli·kgfueldb-1]

njF Number of moles of the unburned compound j [kmolj·kgfueldb-1]
nN2 Number of moles of Nitrogen as effluent [kmolN2·kgfueldb-1]
nO2 Number of moles of Oxygen as effluent [kmolO2·kgfueldb-1]
nSO2 Number of moles of Sulfur dioxide as effluent [kmolSO2·kgfueldb-1]
OM Organic matter content in dry basis [%]
TA Temperature of the air [K]
TF Temperature of the fuel [K]
TG Temperature of the exhaust gases [K]
Tº Room temperature [K]
Tsludge,f Sludge temperature at the exit of the dryer [ºC]
Tsludge,o Sludge temperature at the inlet of the dryer [ºC]
TZ Temperature of the ashes [K]
Wa,F Current ratio of Oxygen [kgO2actual·kgF-1]
WA,F Current ratio of combustion air [kgair·kgF-1]
wCE Unburned Carbon fraction in the bottom ash [kgC·kgbottomash-1]
wCF Carbon content in the fuel in dry basis [kgC·kgF-1]
wCV Unburned Carbon fraction in the fly ash [kgC·kgflyash-1]
WEF Fraction of bottom ash in the fuel [kgbottomash·kgF-1]
wHF Hydrogen content in the fuel dry basis [kgH·kgF-1]
wjF Fraction of the element j in the fuel [kg·kgF-1]
wNF Nitrogen content in the fuel dry basis [kgN·kgF-1]
wOF Oxygen fraction in the fuel dry basis [kgO2·kg F-1]
Universidade de Aveiro ix
wOF Oxygen content in the fuel dry basis [kgO·kgF-1]

Ws.F Stoichiometric consumption of oxidizer [kgO2stoich·kgF-1]
wSF Sulfur content in the fuel dry basis [kgS·kgF-1]
wt Weight percent [%]
WVA Weight ratio of the water vapor in the combustion [kgH2O·kgdry air-1]
air
WVF Fraction of fly ash in the fuel [kgflyash·kgF-1]
WWF Weight ratio of the moisture content in the fuel in [kgwater·kgfueldb]
dry basis
wZE Ash fraction as bottom ash [kgash·kgbottomash-1]
wZF Inorganic byproducts of combustion [kgash·kgfueldb-1]
wZV Ash fraction as fly ash [kgash·kgflyash-1]
YO2,A Molar fraction of Oxygen in the combustion air [kmolO2·kmoldry air-1]
Ys,C Stoichiometric coefficient for Carbon [kmolO2·kmolC-1]

Ys,H Stoichiometric coefficient for Hydrogen [kmolO2·kmolH-1]
Ys,j Stoichiometric consumption of element j [mol·mol-1]

Ys,S Stoichiometric coefficient for Sulfur [kmolO2·kmolS-1]
z Excess of air [%]
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica x

Subscripts
Arb - As received basis
Db - Dry basis
E - Bottom ash
F - Fuel
V - Fly ash
AD - Air dry tones
Universidade de Aveiro xi
1 Introduction
All the human activities have impacts on the environment no matter how well-
designed they are thus, regardless the amount of control and technology involved,
consequences are always expected. Industrial activities are one of those human
activities where waste generation appears as an unavoidable fact. Our economy and
accordingly our industrial processes were designed as open streams where huge
customer’s consumption rates feed and keep the system working. This structure has a
maniac tendency to produce wastes that nobody wants; therefore, a safe final
destination for these wastes appears as a major concern. Landfill disposal was popular
in the past years, but nowadays due to many reasons (e.g. government regulation,
high environmental control standards), too many strategies and techniques were
developed to manage and treat wastes. Nonetheless still exists some specific
constraints that limit their application as well there is an open discussion about the
best treatment technique for each case of waste.
Framed in this problematic this thesis will focus a specific type of waste that comes
from the pulp and paper industry, namely sewage sludge. There are several options to
treat and dispose this type of wastes as well there are several constraints. In general
the main issue is related with its high moisture content, because of that it will be
explored the main features of the paper sludge drying phenomena to achieve a better
understanding of this physic process.
The next main subject of this document is related with the sewage sludge co-
combustion process in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed reactor. The combustion
efficiency of two different types of fuels based on dried sewage sludge in the first case
and dried sewage sludge plus residual forest biomass for the second case will be
assessed in terms of reactor temperature profiles and flue gas composition.
Additionally a case study will be used to realize and asses the main concerns as
well the energy fluxes involved in a hypothetical closed loop process in a pulp and
paper industry where using waste heat to drive the drying stage, the sewage sludge
will be enabled as fuel to be burned in a fluidized bed reactor. The installed power
established for the energy production facility was 50 MWth.
1.1 Pulp and Paper industry
The pulp and paper sector is a very particular case of industry because the
associated companies handle all the production chain (raw materials growth, harvest,
processing, sales and including the product end of life disposal).
In Portugal the pulp and paper sector is the largest forest owner, manages 2% of
the national territory, 4,5% of the national forest area and 20% of the eucalyptus total
area. In terms of macroeconomic indicators the pulp and paper sector represents a
turnover higher than 2 million of euros by 2011 with a 1% growth in relation with the
Universidade de Aveiro 1
past year. In 2009 this sector represented 2% of the national gross value added (GVA),
8% of the industrial GVA, 4% of the national gross domestic product (GDP) and 7% of
the national industrial production (CELPA, 2011).
Energy is one of the big concerns of this industry. Energy consumption grew 4,5%
and for 2011 was fixed in 65.888 TJ due to production increases. The sector shows a big
bet on bio-fuels, biomass represents 68% of the fuels consumed. The principal biofuel
consumed at this sector is the black liquor (which is a sub product of the pulp
production process) that represents 86% of the bio fuels consumed. As well the pulp
and paper sector is one of the few in the Portuguese industry scenario which is self-
sufficient in terms of electric energy; the production exceeds consumption in 34%.
Another important fact is the growth of 15% in the electricity production by
cogeneration (combined production of electricity and heat for industrial purposes)
which is one of the most efficient ways to use primary sources of energy. The electricity
production of this sector in 2011 was 3,44 TWh and the consumption was 2,56 TWh,
therefore, there was a liquid electricity injection to the grid of 880 GWh. The
cogeneration sector in 2010 was responsible for 13% of the total electricity production
in the country. Inside this 13% the pulp and paper sector has a share of 5,4%. In
Portugal, the pulp and paper is the sector that uses more biomass to produce electricity
(73,1%) when compared with other thermoelectric power stations (1,2%) and the rest of
the cogeneration sector (1,9%). A direct consequence of this and due to the high
efficiency of the cogeneration systems is the emission factor per kWh produced when
compared with other sectors and technologies. The average emission factor in Portugal
for 2010 was 436 g CO2/kWh which includes all the renewable energy sources. On the
other side in the pulp and paper sector the emission factor was 133 g CO2/kWh, 69%
less than the national average (CELPA, 2011).
Clearly it is noticed a healthy industry with a strong tendency to growth in terms of

production and turnover but not only this; it can be noticed an increasing interest of
this sector to invest in new business areas not directly associated with the pulp and
paper segment like energy production for instance.
1.1.1 Paper pulp production process
In order to understand the source where the sewage sludge is produced it is

important to have a consistent idea about the pulp production process. A brief review
is presented below.
Basically, the wood consists of lignin, cellulosic fibers and also fatty acids and
resins. The fibers typically have a size of 1-5 mm and a thickness of 0,02-0,04 mm. Its
use in paper manufacture requires its separation. There are two main processes to
achieve this objective, namely: lignin chemical dissolution (digestion) and mechanical
breakdown. Some processes are more appropriate for soft woods (long fibers e.g. pine
tree) and other for hard woods (short fibers e.g. eucalyptus). Both processes have two
main objectives; separate the cellulose fibers from the lignin fibers and bleach it
because their natural color is brown.
Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 2

The chemical dissolution process is self-sufficient in terms of energy due to the

incorporation of significant parts of biomass as fuel for the process while the
mechanical breakdown process requires an average of 1000 kWh to produce a ton of
pulp. The wood usage rate in mechanical breakdown process is high, around 95% in
contrast with 45% in the chemical dissolution. In the mechanically breakdown process
broken fibers are produced, therefore the paper strength is low. In the chemical
dissolution process long fibers are produced, therefore the paper strength is high. All
this features implies a significant difference in costs for each process. Due to the
amount of organic matter lost during the pulp production the scope of this work will
be centered in the chemical dissolution process.
1.1.1.1 Chemical digestion
There are two types of chemical digestion processes, the sulphate method (or
kraft) and the sulfite method (acidic). The kraft method is the most popular because
produces a strength pulp and involves thermal economy.
As a resume the stages of the kraft method are:
- The process starts cutting the trunk of the tree and transporting it from the
forest to the factory. In the factory the tree barks are separated and the trunk is
reduced to small chips. These small chips are stocked to then feed the digester.
- The digestion occurs in two stages; in the first one the chips enter to the low
pressure zone of the digester to be heated by steam as they fall down. In the
second stage the pressure in the digester is increased to 9 kgf·cm-2
approximately; the temperature goes to 155 - 175 ºC and at these conditions the
chips get in contact with the digestion liquor. Then the digestion is interrupted
by rapid cooling with cold liquor followed by a decompression stage. Here the
pulp color is brown.
- The process continues with a washing stage with water in counterflow where
the big wood pieces not digested are separated. Then follows a filtration stage
under vacuum. At the end the pulp gets thickened and densified and the black
liquor goes to another process to recover the chemical assets and the organic
matter dissolved.
- Finally the pulp is bleached with chlorine, washed, densified again and
wrapped in packs to transport it to the paper factories. The pulp still does not
have the properties of the paper, namely opacity, surface finish and strength
therefore, it is still necessary a refining process to convert it into paper.
1.1.1.1.1 Sewage sludge produced by the pulp and paper industry
There are four types of sewage sludge generated in the pulp and paper industry
during the described production process, namely:
- Primary sludge
- Biological sludge (also called secondary)
- Dregs
- Grits
As referred in section 1.1.1.1 there is a parallel process to the pulp production

where by causticisation the black liquor is recovered, turning it into white liquor to
refill the digesters. This process is more complex than the pulp production by itself; it
involves evaporation processes and many lixiviation stages. Along this stages two
types of sludge are generated, they are called dregs and grits.
As mentioned this recovering process of black liquor involves not only the
chemical assets recovery, it also involves organic matter recovery that is used as fuel
with an important contribution to the pulp production energy needs, due to this fact
the sludge generated in this phase only contain a residual amount of organic matter in
consequence the heating value of it are extremely low.
Besides that, there are two extra types of sludge that basically come from the
company waste water treatment plants (WWTP). A WWTP is a facility which objective
is to transfer the pollutants from a liquid phase to a solid phase with lower volume and
high pollutants concentration. At the exit of a WWTP two type of products are
obtained, a liquid effluent with low concentration of pollutants able to discharge to the
environment and a semi solid product (sludge) that generally has a high concentration
of pollutants. Normally the pulp and paper factories divide the waste water treatment
process between a primary clarifier and a secondary clarifier.
The degree of primary treatment is achieved by several physical processes;

generally harrowing and desanding followed by a primary clarifying stage. The first
two actions are known as preliminary treatment where the big solids are removed to
avoid clogging, overflow problems and to prevent damages in the mechanical devices
downstream. Then the rest of particles which sedimentation rate is high (mainly
consisting of sands) are removed in a desanding stage.
After preliminary treatment and desanding stage, the effluent still contains
organic and inorganic matter besides other suspense solids. These solids will be
removed largely in the primary clarifier, where they deposit it as, primary sludge that
is usually removed by pumping without microbiological intervention.
The effluent from the primary treatment still contains approximately 20% of the
suspended solids present in the initial effluent and all the dissolved organic and
inorganic matter. This organic matter still needs to be reduced to accomplish with the
discharge policies. The organic removal is called secondary treatment and it can be
accomplished by two methods; chemical - physical processes (coagulation, filtration,
chemical oxidation, activated carbon adsorption, etc.) or biological processes (activated
sludge, aerated lagoons, trickle bed reactors, etc.) The secondary treatment by

biological processes can remove about 85% of the organic matter present in the effluent
using microorganisms.
The biological process uses activated sludge which microorganisms are kept
suspended in the effluent. The reservoir is mechanically aerated from the bottom and
naturally aerated (by air contact) in the upper surface. The microorganisms use the
organic matter in the effluent as nutriment and convert part of it in biological cells or
biomass. When the effluent has a high content of organic matter a large variety of
microorganisms is needed for the treatment (mixed crops). The sludge with billions of
microorganisms can be reused. Generally the used sludge is recirculated to the aerated
tank mixing it with air and new effluent. At the end of secondary treatment the effluent
is transferred to a clarifier to remove the excess of microorganisms. The removed
matter from the secondary clarifier is called secondary sludge. The secondary sludge
normally passes through a dewatering and filtering stage generally by mechanical
compression. At the exit of the mechanical press the moisture content in “wet basis” is
typically between 75 to 85% if a thickening table is used and 85 to 90% if not.
To complete the secondary treatment, the effluent from the clarifier is

disinfected with chlorine before discharge it in the receiving medium. The chlorine
removes the pathogenic bacteria and reduces the smells. This treatment can also be
done by ultra – violet rays or ozone.
In many cases the sludge are obtained as mixed sludge (primary sludge mixed
with secondary sludge). In other cases the sludge are separated in different clarifiers
and then processed in common. Therefore the primary and secondary sludge are an
unavoidable waste, coming from the WWTP as a result of the extraction of organic
matter from the effluent and from the microorganism’s growth (biological matter not
stabilized).
1.2 Main Objectives
Knowing that the high moisture content of the sewage sludge is a major problem
when considering its energetic valorization by combustion, this work is dedicated to
address this issue from two different approaches, namely, theoretical and
experimental. Also, recognizing the need of a better knowledge about the combustion
process of sewage sludge, in a second part of the work it was evaluated the combustion
process of sewage sludge, and its mixture with residual forest biomass, in a pilot-scale
bubbling fluidized bed combustor. In this context, for this work the following
objectives were considered:
The first one was to develop a theoretical model on MATLAB to allow the
assessment of the influence of sewage sludge moisture content in a fuel mixture
composed by different mass portions of sewage sludge and residual forest biomass. It
was intended to use a case study based on a 50MWth combustion facility to perform an
analysis in terms of useful energy, fuel consumption, flue gas composition, waste heat
in the flue gas and solid products of combustion. Based on this information it was
intended to estimate the power needed to drive a drying process for the sewage sludge
under several scenarios.
Knowing that a drying stage for the sewage sludge is a key factor and as a
complement of the theoretical analysis, the second main objective was to identify
through experimentation in a drying tunnel which of the features often reported in the
literature about solids drying, namely shrinkage, cracks and specially crust phenomena
are present for this type of sewage sludge from pulp and paper industries. It was
intended to develop a drying kinetic model that having into account the
aforementioned phenomena, be able to describe the moisture content reduction along
the time for several drying conditions. The establishment of the time needed to shift
the sludge moisture content to values suitable for its combustion with energy recovery
using low drying temperatures (below 60ºC) was the goal.
Finally, the third objective of this work was to prepare two different biomass
fuel samples based on sewage sludge and its mixture with residual forest biomass, and
to perform a set of combustion experiments in a pilot scale bubbling fluidized bed
reactor in order to assess the combustion behavior of these fuels.

2 Sewage sludge treatment in the pulp and paper industry
Once defined the source of the wastes subject of this thesis, it is necessary to have a
better understanding about the amounts of wastes involved. It is presented Table 2.1
which resumes the specific wastes production rate in -air dry tons- that refers the
conditions in which the pulp is sold, this means that it does not suffer drying (normally
the moisture content is 10%).
Table 2.1 - Wastes specific production of the pulp factories in [kg·tAD-1]. Source:(Batista, 2013).
Wastes Specific production [kg · tAD-1]

Woods park 8
Tailings of sieving (uncooked/nodes + 10
tailings of end sieving)
Grits + Dregs 15
Ash from electric filters and slag’s 20
Primary sludge 10
Secondary sludge 7
TOTAL 70
As mentioned despite the increase of technology and electronic communications,

paper demand is still growing. The wastes generated during its production follow this
trend; accordingly recycling has gained prominence as a subject matter that serves as
orientation to discuss about how this considerable amount of wastes can be managed.
A meaningful discussion of recycling requires a common vocabulary, based on

clear and consistent definitions. Reduce can refer as using or discarding less of a
product or decreasing its toxicity during production or in waste stream. Reuse occurs
when the original function is maintained. On the other hand adapting an item for new
use without changing its essential form or nature (e.g. use of a coffee can as a container
for nuts and bolts) is called repurposing. If a product requires some cleaning or repair
before it can be used again, it is remanufactured or refurbished. There is another
interesting concept called down cycling which consider the conversion of waste
materials into new materials or products of lesser value and reduced functionality
compared to the original. Unlike up cycling, concept that considers the conversion of a
waste material into something of greater value.
Several additional options are available especially for organic waste which is the
case of refuse-derived fuel where wastes can be used as fuel to be burned for energy
recovery in a waste-to-energy (WTE) plant or other industrial facility. Organic matter
can also be partially decomposed to gas by digestion or to a humus-like material by
composting (Gaines, 2012).
Summarizing, recycling can be seen as the transformation of waste (items that are
unwanted or perceived as unusable and would otherwise be thrown away) into usable
products or materials, which is sometimes referred as resource recovery.
2.1 Options for sewage sludge treatment
Due to the physical and chemical processes involved during its treatment, the
sludge is contaminated with a wide range of pollutants. The sewage sludge has the
tendency to accumulate heavy metals and hardly biodegradable organic compounds as
well as potentially pathogenic organisms like virus and bacteria’s present in the waste
water. Due to this the sludge must be conveniently treated before send it to a final
destination. During these last years a very active research area dedicated to this issue
arises. Taking into account the recycling definitions presented in section 2, four main
treatment tendencies were identified: ceramization, incineration, agricultural
application and landfill disposal.
2.1.1 Vitrification
The main purpose of a waste treatment technique is the inertization of the

waste to control its dangerousness. To achieve this objective, one of the available
options is to immobilize it in a more stable matrix that does not react with the
environment; basically it is intended to transfer the hazardous pollutants to a solid
matrix that ensures their efficient encapsulation. When the immobilization technique
was applied to the sludge issue, according to academic publications two options were
identified as very suitable, the sludge incorporation as raw material in bricks
production and the sludge incorporation in expanded clay production (light weight
aggregates).
Bricks production considers the addition of low percentage of sludge (no more
than 20 wt%) to the red pulp; some vantages are reported. The high temperature in
ceramic kilns ensures the destruction of hazardous bacteria’s and microorganisms
present in the sludge and the non-volatile metals are effectively fixed in the bricks.
Related to the final product, less raw materials consumption was reported in
conjunction with less energy consumption in the burning process due to the sludge
calorific value. Moreover, the addition of sewage sludge in bricks promote a strength
increase when the product is crude or green, texture and color of the final product does
not present any change. On the other hand some disadvantages were reported such as
an increased energy consumption in the drying process due to the high sludge
moisture content, difficulty of obtaining products with specific dimensions (shrinkage),
larger burning cycles to avoid the "black heart" (Fe3+ to Fe2+ hematite → magnetite) and
the technological characteristics evolve negatively with respect to porosity and
mechanical strength after burning (Batista, 2013).
The sewage sludge incorporation as raw material in the production of

expanded clay reports remarkable results. The aggregates were successfully obtained
with spherical form, porous internal structure and a good grain size distribution. The
rate in which the sewage sludge was incorporated in the clay matrix was 10 and 20
wt% of primary sludge and up to 30 wt% of incorporation in the case of biological
sludge. Leaching tests were not significant, showing that this process results in an
efficient inertization of wastes. The characteristics of the production process and the

product were kept unchanged. However, the high water content of the sewage sludge
requires a strict initial control of the burn operation (Fernandes, 2005).
These results shows the effective implementation of cellulosic sewage sludge in

stable matrixes becoming products with an increased added value being an interesting
environmental solution., however the excessive moisture content of the sludge appears
as an issue to overcome.
2.1.2 Recycling in agriculture
Primary and secondary sludges are rich in nutrients such as Nitrogen and
Phosphorous; moreover considering their organic content they can be useful to eroded
soils as an organic corrector. The application of both type of sludges are suitable for
acid soils because it causes considerable increases in soil Hydrogen potential (pH) but
care is required regarding the way chosen to accomplish it. It is important to take into
account the seasons of the year in conjunction with the quantity of sludge to be added,
weather, soil conditions and type of crops. Adding sludge with high heavy metals
content to the soils can be serious due to its ability to accumulate in the vegetable and
animal tissues. Regarding the type of crops many surveys indicate that accumulation
effect takes place rapidly in horticultural products and big cereals crops.
Additional issues are reported regarding to the low Magnesium content of the
sludge, which in soils whose Magnesium percentage of exchange is low requires the
addition of this element as an additive to the fertilizer. Furthermore there is a
significant increase in the values of exchangeable Sodium in the soil; this fact can
became a conditioning factor in the systematic application of large amounts of primary
and biological sludge due to the detrimental effect that a high percentage of
exchangeable Sodium can exert on the physical characteristics of the soils structure.
Furthermore the frequency and quantities of sludge that soils require is low when
compared with the amount of sludge to dispose and treat (Batista, 2013).
2.1.3 Landfill disposal
According to Portuguese law (DL 239/97) a landfill is a disposal facility used for
the controlled deposition of waste above or below the natural surface. The wastes are
thrown neatly and covered with earth or similar material. There is a systematic control
of leaching waters and gases and a controlled monitoring of the environmental impact
during operation and after closure. The most common problems that a landfill brings
can be described as follows: long period of land utilization and considerable surface
area that a landfill requires. It also must be account the resources and raw materials
lost, dependency to weather, needing of cover material, bad smells, risk of
groundwater contamination and presence of mice and carrion birds. Moreover it must
be taken into account that a landfill is an uncontrolled and chaotic reactor. In addition,
decomposition of organic wastes in oxygen absence produces methane which has a
global warming potential twenty five times greater when compared to the same mass
of CO2.
During the last years by policies, governments are putting a big pressure on
landfill deposition activities by increasing the costs of wastes disposal with organic
content. The principal objective is to create and encourage recycling systems and
establish other synergies. Some statistics shows that about 12% of the total solid wastes
generated in the pulp and paper sector were destined to landfill. As shown in Table 2.1
sewage sludge is just one part of those solid wastes; being more specific other studies
shows that 70% of the sewage sludge produced is directed to landfills (Batista, 2013).
When there are other options to recycle and treat wastes, by far, landfilling is
the worst choice, furthermore as shown in the case of sewage sludge, deposition costs
are high and another issue must be taken into account; the high moisture content of the
sludge increase transportation costs; essentially the main bulk transported is water
therefore the need of a drying stage gets relevance.
2.1.4 Waste to energy
The heat treatment as a waste treatment option attempts to inertize the sludge
by means of cracking the organic molecules by elevated temperature in the presence of
oxygen (combustion) or in its absence (pyrolysis and gasification). Those processes are
more effective as higher the temperature and time of residence in the reactor of the
hazardous material to be destroyed. The considerable organic content of biological
sludge makes them interesting for combustion.
Incineration in essence is a concept that comprises the wastes combustion with

or without energy recovery in units built for this purpose. Nevertheless a special case
was identified where using industrial plants that have not been specifically constructed
for this purpose after a few modifications, wastes can be burn. This is the case, for
instance; of sludge incorporation as fuel in cement production kilns. This process is
known as fuels derived from wastes.
Advantages of incineration as a waste treatment technique, in general terms can

be summarized as follows. Incineration ensures the effective destruction of hazardous
component in the waste in conjunction with a considerable volume and weight
reduction. Moreover the flue gas control can be done, using the already implemented
monitoring systems in the furnaces. It is also important to mention the less land area
usage when compared with other treatment options e.g. landfilling. Finally, the
operational costs reduction due to energy recovery is also an important advantage to
take into account. Some researchers report as disadvantages the fact that only wastes
with high organic content can be burn. In addition emissions control of some metals
can be hard. Regarding to financial issues some studies shows that starting an
incineration plant from zero can represent a high investment, then those kind of plants
can require a support fuel due to the low heating value of some types of wastes
(Batista, 2013).
The case of sludge incorporation as fuel for clinker production is interesting,

because the organic matter provides a significant part of the heat needed for
clinquerization which is commonly known as energy intensive. At the end of the

process the sludge ashes that contain potentially hazardous heavy metals are sintered
and stabilized in cement which is a very stable matrix. Furthermore, the pozzolanic
(aluminosilicates) characteristics of the sludge ashes are extremely important because it
can partially supply one of the main clinker active components, Calcium (Wzorek,
2012). Regarding to this appliance it is important to take into account Chlorine content
in the ashes because it can attack the steel in the structures where cement is applied.
Moreover it is very important to take into account the Sodium content, because it
causes late expansion of cement which can cause cracks (Rajamma, 2011). Other
important fact that limits the sludge incorporation in cement is its high water content
because the process in the clinker kiln is endothermic until the water from the sludge is
evaporated. This fact decreases the kiln temperature and also would increase the flow
rate of flue gas, which could overload existing devices for flue gas cleaning and
capacity of fans. The characteristic parameters suggested for sludge utilization in
cement kilns are: a maximum of 20 wt% of water content, a LHV of minimum 9 MJ/kg
and a granulometry between 0 and 5 mm (Stasta, Boran, Bebar, Stehlik, & Oral, 2006).
Another issue to overcome is availability; practically it is needed a clinker factory close
to a pulp factory. The transportation option is not suitable due to the high moisture
content as mentioned in section 2.1.3. Definitely, a drying process as pre-treatment
option at the place which the sludge is generated is fundamental to enable any other
treatment option.
2.1.4.1 Co – combustion of sewage sludge in fluidized bed reactor
As discussed in section 2.1.1 to 2.1.4 there are many interesting options for the
sludge final treatment and destination, focusing the scope of this dissertation, the
sludge utilization as fuel will be discussed. The burning technology chosen is the
fluidized bed reactor once it has been proven as one of the best technologies available
for the energetic conversion of solid fuels, especially biomass (Tarelho, 2012).
Basically, the secondary sludge due to its relative stability regarding to

elemental composition and of course because its considerable heating value when
compared with dregs and grits makes it suitable for incineration but the high moisture
content prevents its combustion with energy recovery. To overcome this issue co-
combustion regime is an option. Co–combustion is a technique where two or more
different type of fuels (different elemental and proximal composition) are combusted.
This combustion regime becomes an interesting option, since it allows for the use of
existing infrastructures already equipped with appropriate devices for emissions
control, reducing at the same time their fuel consumption. Usually a base fuel with a
high heating value is used to support the process and small and controlled amount of
other fuels are added; generally coal and biomass are used as base fuels.
Some previous studies shows that the maximum amount of wet sludge that can
be burned in co-combustion regime is close to 50 wt%. Higher concentrations of wet
sludge, prevent reach and maintain a temperature of 850 ºC in the reactor (Lars-Erick
Amand, Leckner Bo, Karsten Lücke, 2001).
For co-combustion of wood or coal with paper mill sludge, was found that
adding a maximum amount of 25 wt% of sludge, the behavior of the main fuel prevails
(Leckner, Åmand, Lücke, & Werther, 2004). It is also reported that the sludge
combustion kinetic is similar to wood due to the high content of volatiles which makes
this fuel very reactive. It was found that when burning sludge, volatiles combustion
occurs mainly in the freeboard zone, neglect this fact can cause an increase of the
carbon monoxide (CO) concentration in the stack and even the volatile organic
compounds (VOC´s).
Similarly that volatiles, there is a fast release of VOC´s at the reactor fuel
feeding port. As mentioned, sludge combustion takes place mainly in gaseous phase;
consequently VOC´s and CO emissions are highly dependent of this behavior. This
means that an efficient combustion of volatile practically destroys VOC´s therefore;
there is a correlation between incomplete combustion, CO and VOC´s production
(Lars-Erick Amand, Leckner Bo, n.d.)(Gulyurtlu, Abelha, Grego, & Garcı, 2004).
Another important feature of the sludge behavior to take into account is the
weight difference between them and other types of fuels. Basically due to weight
difference, sludge particles fall down different in the reactor and it causes important
changes in the combustion process. Thus reach a sufficiently high temperature of
combustion is important to an effective effluents control. Care needs to be taken when
heavy metals are part of the sludge composition. Reaching temperatures above 900 ºC
could allow the release of heavy metals in the effluents stream in a gaseous phase.
Basically the objective is to keep all dangerous components in a solid phase in the form
of slags and ashes (L.-E. Åmand & Leckner, 2004).
Regarding to solid products of combustion is well known that the sludge

combustion produces more quantity of ashes when compared with coal or other
biomass types like wood. Biomass post combustion products are fewer than those from
coal combustion but it is important to note that due to the presence of heavy metals on
its elemental composition the biomass post combustion solid products are more
dangerous even more in the case of sludge since it comes from WWTP. Other
important feature to take into account besides the quantity and hazard is that ashes
from sludge combustion are stickier than others. Therefore, the sludge usage as fuel
requires the implementation of some changes in the infrastructure of the power station
facilities. Basically it is needed to re size the effluents treatment systems such as
cyclones and ash filters.
Additional issues were also reported when Sodium, Potassium and Chlorine
content in the sludge is high. De-fluidization problems were reported because those
elements cause a considerable reduction in the bed sand melting point. Temperatures
higher than 900 ºC can smelt the bed sand and consequently de-fluidize the reactor
(Shao, 2007).
Regarding to flue gas composition some surveys shows that emissions of SOx
and NOx decrease with increasing sludge feeding rate, but CO shows the reverse

tendency due to the decrease in combustion temperature caused by a large amount of

moisture in the sludge (Tsai, Wu, Huang, & Lee, 2002). When assessing moisture
content influence in the NO and NO2 emissions it was found that emissions from wet
sludge are similar or even lower than those from dried sludge (L. Åmand & Leckner,
2001). High Chlorine emissions is generally reported which can be effectively
controlled by scrubbers or injecting hydrated lime in the flue gas path (Hartman,
Svoboda, Pohor, & Trnka, 2005).
An efficient combustion is important to prevent undesirable effluents, when

assessing the combustion performance in terms of carbon conversion rate (CCR) and
the emission rates of CO, CxHy and NOx the results of the parametric study shown that
a 35% water content and 60g feeding mass generated the best conditions for
combustion. The total CO and NOx emission decreases as the secondary air ratio
increases at the same time the CO2 emission increases. It was shown that the cases in
which the sludge water content was 35% and 45% emit relatively lower molecular
weight CxHy, a result that reveals higher combustion efficiency thereby for general
industrial burners, staged combustion with secondary air injection is one of the
popular methods to reduce emissions (Shin, Jang, & Hwang, 2005).
Regarding to heavy metals emissions special attention was paid to the most
volatile species Mercury and Cadmium. Some surveys show that there was no Mercury
in the bed, it was found in the form of fly ashes. Some Cadmium was found in the bed,
especially during operation with coal. In general terms Mercury and Cadmium were
enriched in the fly ash. The typical distribution of ashes between bottom and fly ash is
about 30% - 70%, but in some cases it can goes to a 50% - 50% distribution. Mercury
was found mostly in the bag filter, whereas Cadmium was rather evenly distributed
between secondary cyclone and bag filter. The survey concludes that most of the trace
elements were found in the ash and the emission of trace elements with the flue gases
was small in the cases investigated; the concentrations were less than the maximum
acceptable emissions established by the European Union (L.-E. Åmand & Leckner,
2004).
Regarding to stock and handling operations some issues were also reported.
When the moisture content exceeds 10%, bacteria´s activity causes a drop of the
heating value and also produces bad smells, therefore the storage time for this type of
fuels cannot be prolonged (Leckner et al., 2004).
2.2 Sewage sludge drying
As discussed in section 2.1, many techniques were tested in order to treat

sludge, several applications were developed but in general it was found that the high
moisture content is the big constraint to overcome; definitely a dried sludge is required
to enable any other treatment option. For co-combustion that is the waste treatment
technique that will be discussed in this document a drying stage as a pretreatment
option is extremely important.
Mechanical dewatering of sludge is a process that has been used generally as a

means of solid concentration in discharged waste. For this purpose some systems are
used, as decantation, centrifugation, filtration, etc. Those are able to raise the solids
content in the final residue to values between 20 - 40 wt%. However after this process
important moisture content still remains in the sludge; that is the reason why a thermal
dewatering process is needed. There are a lot of drying systems applied in the
industrial sector but adaptation to handle sludge has some difficulties, for instance the
mass transport (dryer feeding), which in many drying processes can be done by simple
means; in the case of sludge due to its plastic behavior is a big issue.
For sewage sludge thermal treatment, design and assessment there are three
main factors that must be taken into account:
- Thermal transfer (heat and mass) which determine the heating means;
- Mass manipulation, which determine the physical transport medium;
- Vapor transport, which determine the absorption medium and the means of
environment protection.
2.2.1 Sludge drying processes
Based on the aforementioned factors several devices available to manage and

dry sludge were developed and they can be classified by the drying technique used to
transfer heat. By this concept two types of systems can be defined: indirect and direct.
The first one uses air in direct contact with the sludge mass. For the second type of
systems the heat mean (water steam or heating oil for instance) is separated from the
sludge mass by a wall.
In terms of infrastructure, direct systems are simpler than indirect systems

because they use air to heat the sludge and to absorb its moisture. Indirect systems
require more complex heat transfer systems either in the heat transfer to the heat
medium or in the heat transfer to the sludge mass. In both cases the objective is to
transfer heat to the core of the sludge and spread it uniformly, here the sludge physical
characteristics are very important.
Direct drying is suitable for easy disaggregated products with a big drying
specific surface because this facilitate heat transfer to the sludge cake and moisture
absorption from the surface. It can be experienced some difficulties if is needed to
handle a very amorphous, plastic and wet mass.
On the other hand, indirect drying completely separates the heat transport
mean and the moisture absorption mean. The heat addition is made through a partition
wall between the sludge and the heating mean, thereby depending of the shape of this
wall, the heat transfer surface area can be considerably increased, thus increasing the
water evaporation rate; of course the sludge mass consistency continue being a limiting
factor.

Figure 2.1 - Up: direct sludge drying system. Down: indirect sludge drying system.
Source:(Siemens Water Technologies Corp, 2008).
Starting with the difficulty involved in handling a wet mass in the form of
paste, it is added the effect of changing the sludge plastic mass characteristics.
According to (Undebarrena, 1999) between 60% and 50% of moisture content, the
sludge gets a plastic texture, fundamentally elastic, sticky and difficult to handle.
Therefore the drying system must be able to keep the sludge mass moving to achieve
the next stage. Below 50% of moisture content the sludge gets a texture easier to
transport and handle. To avoid handling problems with sludge with a moisture
content up to 50% some technologies applied a recirculation process where a small part
of dried sludge is returned to the dryer feeding port or the place where the plastic
problems occurs.
When the moisture reaches the surface of the sludge cake it evaporates being
transported to the absorption medium. As mentioned, direct drying uses air as
absorption medium which implies the need of operate with high temperatures and
flows. Extremely high temperature can modify the sludge composition and trigger an
important entrainment of solid particles that must be captured at the exhaust of the
dryer. The solids capture can be done with bag filters. In some cases the vapors
condensation is done after the solid filtration.
In indirect drying systems, air is used just for the vapor absorption, therefore, is
possible to use relatively small volumes avoiding the solids entrainment. However
some cases require an exhaust gases washing (wet process for capture and
condensation of vapors and solids) as a safety measure due to the presence of volatile
compounds. An important study was carried on, where the emission characteristics of
volatile compound during paper mill sludge drying process were investigated on a
lab-scale tubular drying furnace and a pilot-scale paddle dryer. The results indicates
that five kinds of VCs, i.e. CO2, NH3, C7H16 (n-heptane), volatile fatty acids (VFAs) and
CH4 were emitted during the drying process. It was found that the VFAs and CO2 were
the main compounds released. The temperature and water content of sludge had great
effects on the emission rates of NH3, C7H16, CO2 and VFAs (Deng et al., 2009).
Is also important to mention a relatively novel technique that is getting

academic attention called fry drying which consists of immerse a moist material in a
large volume of hot oil. As new ways of disposing recycled food oils have to be found,
it is proposed the idea of a co-treatment of recycled food oils with sewage sludge to
formulate a derived fuel. Deep fat frying, performed at 160ºC with municipal digested
sewage sludge, enables to remove 90% of the initial water content in less than 1500 s
(Carlos A . Peregrina Cambero, 2004)(Ohm, Chae, Kim, Kim, & Moon, 2009). There is
another important advantage to mention, which is the increase of the sludge heating
value after drying. The heating values of the sludge samples prior to fry-drying were
0,91, 1,11 and 1,79 MJ/kg respectively. After drying, these values were increased to
22,26, 25,05 and 25,25 MJ/kg, respectively (Ohm et al., 2009).
In order to assess the environmental impacts of this process a life cycle analysis
(LCA) was performed. LCA is a powerful tool used to foresee the environmental
performance of a product, this approach has some limitations because some
assumptions are needed (externalities), however in the four impact categories selected,
fry drying systems have shown a good performance. An economic assessment appears
as a necessary complement to determine the feasibility of fry drying as an intermediate
step in the disposal of sludge by incineration (Peregrina, Lecomte, Arlabosse, &
Rudolph, 2006).
This approach seems to be interesting since treats two types of problematic

wastes and produces a waste derived fuel. It is important to mention that there is still
no academic publications about the behavior of those derived fuels when burned on
different types of reactors thus it is still unknown the flue gas composition and if it
complain with international standards.
2.2.2 Drying insights
When a wet solid is dried there are two processes that take place: energy
transfer (in the heat form) from the environment to the product that allows the
evaporation of the moisture on its surface and internal moisture transfer from the solid
core to its surface. The transport of moisture within the solid may occur by capillary
action or by liquid and/or vapor diffusion, and the mechanism by which it takes place
depends on the bonds between water and the solid. Water bonds physically to the

solid, and thus fills the macro- and micro-pores of the material. Humidity equilibrium
is established between the moisture on the solid surface and water vapor pressure in
the gas just above the solid surface, whereas free humidity is the excess humidity
above the equilibrium value. Hence drying can be seen as a combined process of heat
transfer (product heating) and mass transfer (moisture removal).
Convective drying as mentioned in section 2.2.1 is a process that uses the air to
drive the heat and transfer the water excess from the solid to the atmosphere. This is
based on the air property where increasing the temperature of the air its relative
humidity decreases allowing the absorption of the product’s moisture. Thus a mass
loss can be verified as a result of the evaporation of a fraction of the water in the solid.
The heat added allows the migration of water to the surface, therefore, the drying air
must have a considerable amount of heat to yield it to the material, in addition to
acceptable conditions to keep and transport a quantity of mass in the form of steam. In
general terms the necessary condition to dry a product is that the partial pressure of
water vapor in the product surface must be greater than the partial pressure of steam
in the air.
The drying process based on mass and heat transfer can be divided in three
stages although not all materials behave in the same way.
Figure 2.2 - Typical drying curves. Source(Park, 2007).
Frequently, several stages are distinguishable when a wet solid is dried under a
flow of hot air. Initially, there is a short period of time when the sample is heated or
cooled (evaporation can cause a cooling of the product) during which the variation of
temperature depends on the heat transfer from the air to the solid. After this initial
stage, sometimes follows a constant drying rate period, which is a result of the above
mentioned equilibrium. Finally, there is a period where the drying rate decreases, in
which the temperature of the solid increases and water diffusion from inside the solid
to the surface takes place by the mechanisms described earlier. This final period has
different stages depending on which mechanisms dominate the drying process as they
would differ in the case of a liquid, gas or gas/liquid phase. Therefore, the drying of
moist solids is a complex process involving simultaneous and coupled heat and mass
transfer. This processes can be modeled by considering mass and heat balances, and
assuming that water diffuses according to kinetic laws (R. Font, M.F. Gomez-Rico,
2011).
2.2.2.1 Sludge drying kinetics
There are many approaches for describing drying kinetics. (J. Vaxelaire, J.M.
Bongiovanni, P. Mousques, 2000) proposed a macroscopic approach in terms of drying
potential in order to assess the influence of temperature, relative humidity and air
velocity in the drying process and mostly to know which set of operating conditions is
better, quicker and cheaper than another. They derive an overall parameter by the
difference between the chemical potential of saturated vapor at wet bulb temperature
(temperature at the surface of the wet material) and the one of the vapor at dry bulb
temperature. The obtained drying curves reproduce very well the drying behavior for
the constant rate period but in the falling rate period some discrepancies were found.
The study also warn about the occurrence of a dry layer at the surface of the
product while the center stays wet which difficult the drying process, it was found that
this phenomenon in conjunction with shrinkage are important aspects of sludge drying
that can strongly modify the drying kinetics. Differential shrinkage is produced due to
non-uniform moisture content distribution and/or non-uniform temperature profiles.
Usually shrinkage leads to crack formation then some crannies appears at the surface
of the sludge cake which let the hot air to enter in the sludge core increasing the drying
rates.
Diffusion models are commonly used to try to describe this complex process.
Those models are applicable to solids drying for a long falling period in cases where
the initial and constant rate periods are very short, or entirely absent. The use of
numerical techniques for solving the heat and mass balances and the kinetic equation
are not easy. The finite elements method, which solves the models for spheres,
cylinders and slabs, divides these geometries into different volume elements and then
applies mass and heat balances and related kinetic laws to them (Crank, 1975).
Using those strategies during the last years the sludge drying behavior was
studied by many researchers. Several related documents try to establish the effects of
drying conditions, the sludge behavior, and the mass and heat transfer coefficients. The
researchers’ uses different types of sludge as sample, due to this; some differences can
be verified on their conclusions. However two main types of sludges were identified.
The first one with a high granulometry that present a constant rate period during the
first part of the drying process and almost do not present the crust effect and other
which do not present a constant rate period and have a strong crust formation during
drying; this type of sludge takes more time to dry. For both, the same global trend is
observed: the mean drying flux increases with increasing air superficial velocity and
temperature and decreasing air moisture content. (Léonard, Blacher, Marchot, Pirard,
& Crine, 2005) conclude that the temperature has the major influence on the drying
kinetics, followed by superficial velocity and air moisture content.

Regarding to the details related with handling and testing, it was found that
most of the experiments were performed in experimental drying tunnels under
controlled conditions. The mass lost by the samples during the drying process is
monitored in continuous during the process and in some cases the temperature inside
the sample is also recorded. In general terms the samples are taken from the WWTP or
industrial sources. It was reported that the pressure at the samples were subjected
during mechanical dewatering has no influence in the drying kinetics (R. Font, M.F.
Gomez-Rico, 2011). Before the experiments the samples are normally stored at 4ºC. To
find the initial moisture content and the dry mass quantity, the samples generally are
subjected to drying in an oven at 105ºC.
For the study of the drying kinetics different types of sludge shapes were used
for kinetic model development. (Reyes, Eckholt, Troncoso, & Efremov, 2004) uses a
tablet shape and drying kinetics was modeled for the falling rate period using the
modified quasi-stationary method and the Fick’s second law. They used metal boxes
filled with sludge and a drying tunnel with parallel air flow. At the beginning of
drying, a thin and porous crust is formed on the surface of the samples, which
remained unchanged for the first 30 min at 90 ºC. From this moment a considerable
shrinkage and cracking of the sludge sample was observed forming hollow cavities of
different size that increase the drying rate due to the increase in the surface contact
area. The effective diffusivity was also determined from the integrated Fick’s equation,
and correlated with temperature by an Arrhenius type equation.
(Bennamoun, Belhamri, & Léonard, 2010) uses extruded wet material (1

kilogram of cylinders with 12 millimeters diameter) in a discontinuous pilot scale
convective belt dryer reproducing most of the operating conditions prevailing in a full
scale continuous belt dryer. Several mathematical models, reproducing the
experimental results were evaluated. The determination of the correlation coefficient
was the first step and the first criterion to determine the best models. They found that
the Page model and the 4th degree polynomial model describe well the obtained
results; however, the coefficients of the selected models can change with the sludge
type. The temperature range chosen was 120ºC, 140ºC and 160ºC to investigate the
influence of the air temperature as the most influent operating condition. In conclusion
they report that drying kinetics of wastewater sludge can be affected by temperature of
the heated air, but also by the type of sludge.
(J. Vaxelaire and J.R. Puiggali, 2002) proposed an analysis in terms of drying
kinetics modeling a conveyor dryer belt. The set of air operating conditions
(temperature, relative humidity and air velocity) were reduced to a single parameter,
the drying potential. The dryer was supposed to be fed with cylindrical pellets of
sludge disposed in a layer characterized by its initial porosity and thickness. The belt
velocity is an operating parameter and it was fixed for each simulation. The results of
the simulations show that a conveyor belt dryer is not well adapted to activated sludge
(long falling rate period); and this is essentially due to a crust phenomenon. For a
polyvinyl chloride (PVC) industrial sludge this kind of dryer is more efficient and
allows drying with reasonable residence times. The study also established the specific
heat capacity for the sludge samples, using the differential scanning calorimetry
method in the temperatures range of 50 to 90 ºC. At the end was concluded that
specific experiments were needed in order to better describe some particular aspects
such as crusting, shrinkage, and particle size impact before industrialize the process
because probably those parameters are as important as drying conditions.
(R. Font, M.F. Gomez-Rico, 2011) propose a kinetic model to account for water
diffusion and internal heat transfer which considers the vaporization of humidity on
the surface of the particle, diffusion effects in sewage sludge due to heat and moisture,
and formation of a skin layer. They studied the thermal drying of sludge in the
temperature range of 30-65 ºC with two different types of sludge that present different
behaviors in the formation of a skin during the drying process. Small sewage sludge
spheres and cylindrical tablets were produced to develop a kinetic model and to
correlate the experimental data in terms of moisture content and temperature, vs. time.
At the end some important kinetic parameters were obtained (mass transfer coefficient,
heat transfer coefficient, skin effect parameter, diffusion coefficient and activation
energy). A general expression for the diffusivity of water inside a solid was proposed.
The complexity of the system makes that the model was based in many assumptions,
however it reproduces well the drying behavior and considers important effects as
crust and shrinkage. It is important to mention that this very complete kinetic model
can be versatile. Considering different kinetic parameters it is possible to analyze the
drying kinetics of a wide variety of sludges.
2.2.2.2 Artificial neural networks
As exposed in section 2.2.2.1 the drying models based on thermodynamic

considerations can be very difficult to solve. In order to simplify those models, several
assumptions and considerations must be taken and due to this sometimes the model
outputs does not fit the reality with accuracy. Furthermore the state-of-the art revision
suggests that there is enough information about theoretical models based on heat
transfer, mass transfer and diffusion. Being sensible to this fact a detailed search about
alternative methodologies was performed that can simplify the model construction
and also that can offer a faster response about the drying consequences due to changes
in the drying conditions which can be very interesting specially for developing
accurate control systems for industrial applications.
An interesting approach was found. Based on progress of neurobiology some

researchers are allowed to build mathematical models of neurons to simulate neural
behavior. Artificial neural networks (ANN) are recognized as good tools for dynamic
modeling, and have been extensively studied. The interest of these models includes the
modeling without any assumptions about the nature of underlying mechanisms and
their ability to take into account non-linearity and interactions between variables. It
was found that ANN approach was widely used for food drying models construction;
with interesting results that in most of the cases are more accurate than classical drying
models (Trystram & Heyd, 1993)(Joykumar & Krishna, 2011).
At the very beginning, ANN was understood as a special regression technique,

which provides a better way of finding the links between the inputs, outputs and

process variables, during the learning phase. Learning means to present, repeatedly, to
an ANN a set of couples of input/output vectors, and to force it to fulfill a learning
criterion: in most cases, the sum of the squared distances between real and desired
output.
Matching the ANN output to the real world, passes through the neuron
weights, which are modified until the learning criterion is fulfilled. But learning means
nothing to anyone, except when this stage is followed by the use of the ANN. And here
it seems that the ANN performs better than the classical regression, because of its
generalization capacity that means its possibility to give a correct answer to a question
outside the learning set. The ANN generalization relies on its capacity of finding out
the hidden rules that govern the process, even if, at this time, it cannot be
mathematically expressed (Lavric, 1995).
Essentially an ANN is a massive parallel-distributed information processing

system that has certain performance characteristics resembling biological neural
networks of human brain. ANN has been developed as a generalization of
mathematical models of human cognition and neural biology. ANN´s are essentially an
interconnected assembly of simple processing elements, units or nodes, whose
functionality is loosely based on the human’s neuron. The processing ability of the
network is stored in the inter-unit connection strengths, or weights. The values of the
weights are obtained as mentioned by a process of training or learning from a set of
training patterns. These weights are adapted by a learning rule and represent the long-
term memory of the neural network.
Numerous types of the artificial neural networks exist such as multi-layer

perceptron, radial basis function networks and recurrent neural networks, but each
type consists of the same basic features: nodes, layers and connections. The smallest
element of a network is the node. Every node receives signal from a connection, or a
link. The signal is then summed together before being applied a transfer function to
produce the output. The output signals are then propagated to other nodes until it
reaches the output of the network. ANN models are able to describe the results of
several experiments in different drying conditions. They have also the ability to accept
new sets of experiments and the model can be retrained to extend the range of input
parameters (Movagharnejad & Nikzad, 2007).
All the aforementioned features appear interesting to develop a model which

can describe the sludge drying kinetics. Moreover once it is intended to use waste heat
to drive the drying process a model that can offer a faster response under several
drying conditions about the final moisture content that can be achieved in conjunction
with the time needed seems a great help.
2.2.2.2.1 ANN architecture
There are several features defining an ANN that must be taken into account in
order to understand the mechanism used by the model in order generate the forecast.
The first parameter that defines the architecture of an ANN is the direction in
which the information flows. Essentially two types of ANN were identified; the feed
forward network in which the information flows only in one direction through the
hidden nodes and to the output nodes and the recurrent neural networks where the
information flows in cycles or loops.
Table 2.2 – MATLAB available transfer functions. Source:(Gonçalves, 2012).
Code Transfer function

compet Competitive transfer function
hardlim Hard – limit transfer function
hardlims Symmetric hard – limit transfer
function
logsig Log-sigmoid transfer function
netinv Inverse transfer function
poslin Positive linear transfer
function
purelin Linear transfer function
radbas Radial basis transfer function
radbasn Normalized radial basis
transfer function
satlin Saturating linear transfer
function
satlins Symmetric saturating linear
transfer function
softmax Softmax transfer function
tansig Hyperbolic tangent sigmoid
transfer function
tribas Triangular basis transfer
function
The term hidden layer was mentioned above, and this feature is another
important detail of the ANN architecture. As mentioned there is a layer filled with the
input neurons, and another layer filled with the output neurons. There is an extra layer
called hidden layer that is filled with hidden neurons. They are the neurons that are
neither in the input layer nor the output layer. These neurons are essentially hidden
from view, and their number and organization can typically be treated as a black box
to people who are interfacing with the system. Using additional layers of hidden
neurons enables greater processing power and system flexibility. This additional
flexibility comes at the cost of additional complexity in the training algorithm.
The neurons can reach two states, the criteria to activate or deactivate a neuron
relies in a transfer function which is the third aspect of the architecture to be discussed.
The sum of products of the weights and inputs is calculated in each node, and if the
value is above some threshold (typically 0) the neuron fires and takes the activated
value (typically 1); otherwise it takes the deactivated value (typically -1). This

threshold which is the nature of the transfer function can be defined in several ways.
The MATLAB software defines several transfer functions as shown in Table 2.2.
Finally the last main feature that defines the architecture of an ANN is the
training algorithm. As mentioned the objective of the ANN is to achieve the lowest
possible deviation between the calculated output and the database output. A back
propagation train is performed which means to compare those values until achieve a
defined error value. This process lets the ANN to set the most appropriated weights for
each neuron. MATLAB defines several training algorithms, which are presented below.
Table 2.3 – MATLAB available training algorithms. Source:(Gonçalves, 2012).
Code Training algorithm

Trainlm Levenberg-Marquardt
Trainbr Bayesian Regularization
Trainbfg BFGS Quasi-newton
Trainrp Resilient Backpropagation
Trainscg Scaled Conjugate Gradient
Traincgb Conjugate Gradient with
Powell/Beale Restarts
Traincgf Fletcher-Powell Conjugate
Gradient
Traincgp Polak-Ribiére Conjugate
Gradient
Trainoss One step secant
Traingdx Variable Learning Rate
Gradient Descent
2.3 Heat recovery
As exposed in section 2.1.1 to 2.1.4 a thermal treatment stage to reduce the

moisture content of the sludge is extremely important because this not only enable its
use as fuel but which enables any other treatment option. Thermal treatment (drying),
in fact, could be energy intensive. This fact can hinder any chance of recycling. Because
of that it is important to extend the analysis to possible energy sources that can drive
the process in a sustainable way. Those sources must be cheap, stable and largely
accessible. To accomplish it, a better understanding about the industrial waste heat
sources can be the key concept.
There is worldwide concern about the best ways of using the nonrenewable
sources of energy. It has encouraged research and development efforts in the re-use of
the usually wasted forms of energy. Waste heat can be defined as the heat contained in
a substance rejected from a process at a temperature higher than the ambient levels of
the plant; for a more accurately definition it can be pointed it out that industrial waste
heat refers to energy that is generated in industrial process without being put to
practical use. Sources of waste heat may include gases, solids and liquids for instance:
hot combustion gases discharged to the atmosphere, heated products exiting industrial
processes and heat radiated from hot equipment surfaces. Some documents refers that
waste heat is any source of rejected heat having a portion which may be recovered and
reused economically (Canada Department of Energy, 1988). Waste heat recovery can be
also defined as a process that entails capturing and reusing the waste heat in industrial
process for heating or for generating mechanical or electrical work. While some waste
heat losses from industrial process are unavoidable, facilities can reduce it, improving
equipment efficiency or installing waste heat recovery technologies. Understanding of
the fundamentals of heat transfer mechanisms is therefore, important to establish the
waste heat recovery benefits. Essentially, heat transfer occurs by three different
mechanisms; radiation, conduction and convection.
The benefits of heat recovery are multiple: economic, resource saving, and
environmental. The decision as to whether or not to apply a waste heat recovery and
utilization system is usually economical in nature. The payback-period, net present
value, internal rate of return and life-cycle cost concepts can be considered during the
decision-making process. A longer payback period is generally acceptable for projects
having long-life equipment, but a payback period of three to five years is generally
considered reasonable (Energy design resources, 2009).
2.3.1 Heat recovery asses
Evaluating the feasibility of waste heat recovery requires characterizing the

waste heat source and the stream to which the heat will be transferred. Important
waste stream parameters that must be established include: heat quantity, heat quality
(temperature), waste heat stream composition, minimum temperature allowed,
operating schedules, availability and other logistics.
2.3.1.1 Heat quantity
The quantity, or heat content, is a measure of how much energy is contained in

a waste heat stream, while quality is a measure of the usefulness of the waste heat. The
quantity of waste heat contained in a waste stream is a function of mass flow rate,
stream composition, and temperature. It is usually evaluated based on process energy
consumption, typical temperatures, and mass balances.
Although the quantity of waste heat available is an important parameter, it is

not the only one effective measure of waste heat recovery opportunity. It is also
important to specify the waste heat quality, which essentially is determined by its
temperature.
2.3.1.2 Waste heat temperature: quality
The waste heat temperature is a key factor determining waste heat recovery
feasibility. Waste heat temperatures can vary significantly and can be classified by
temperature range, as shown in Table 2.4.

Table 2.4 – Waste heat categories classified by temperature. Source:(Energy design resources,
2009).
Category Temperature
[ºC]
High 500 to 1500
Medium 200 to 500
Low 25 to 200
In order to enable heat transfer and recovery, it is necessary that the waste heat
source temperature is higher than the heat sink temperature. Moreover, the magnitude
of the temperature difference between the heat source and sink is an important
determinant of waste heat’s utility or quality. The source and sink temperature
difference influences the rate at which heat is transferred per unit surface area of heat
exchanger, and the maximum theoretical efficiency of converting thermal energy from
the heat source to another form of energy. Finally, the temperature range has
important ramifications for the selection of materials regarding to recuperation
technologies and recuperation devices.
2.3.1.3 Waste stream composition
Although chemical compositions do not directly influence the quality or

quantity of the available heat (unless it has some fuel value), the composition of the
stream affects the recovery process and material selection. The composition and phase
of waste heat streams will determine factors such as thermal conductivity and heat
capacity, which will impact heat transfer effectiveness. Meanwhile, the process specific
chemical makeup of off gases will have an important impact on heat exchanger
designs, material constraints, and costs.
Another key consideration is the interaction between chemicals in the waste

heat stream and materials of heat recovery technologies and devices. Fouling is a
common problem in heat exchange, and can substantially reduce heat exchanger
effectiveness or cause system failure. Methods for addressing fouling are numerous
and include filtering contaminated streams, constructing the exchanger with advanced
materials, increasing heat exchanger surface areas, and designing the heat exchanger
for easy access and cleaning. Nevertheless, the problem of fouling remains a significant
challenge in thermal science. The significant patent activity and continued antidotal
reports indicate that fouling remains as an unsolved problem. Moreover, a large
portion of research is reactive, involving methods for easily cleaning of fouling, rather
than methods for prevent it.
2.3.1.4 Minimum allowable temperature
The minimum allowable temperature for waste streams is often closely

connected with material corrosion problems. Depending on the fuel used, combustion
related flue gases contain varying concentrations of carbon dioxide, water vapor, NOX,
SOX, unoxidized organics, and minerals. If exhaust gases are cooled below the dew
point temperature, the water vapor in the gas will condense depositing corrosive
substances on the heat exchanger surface. Heat exchangers designed from low-cost
materials will quickly fail due to chemical attack. Therefore, heat exchangers are
generally designed to maintain exhaust temperatures above the condensation point.
The minimum temperature for preventing corrosion depends on the waste stream
composition that is linked to the combustion technology and type of fuel used to
produce heat. The most common method for preventing chemical corrosion is
designing heat exchangers with exhaust temperatures well above the dew point
temperature. However, there are some cases where heat exchangers use advanced
alloys and composite materials to further recover low temperature heat. These systems
have not seen much commercial application due to challenges such as high material
costs, large surface areas required for heat exchange, and lack of an available end use
for low temperature waste heat.
2.3.1.5 Economies of scale, accessibility and other factors
Several additional factors can determine whether heat recovery is feasible in a

given application. For example, small scale operations are less likely to install heat
recovery, since sufficient capital may not be available, and because payback periods
may be longer. Operating schedules can also be a concern. If a waste heat source is
only available for a limited time, the heat exchanger may be exposed to both high and
low temperatures. In this case, it must be ensure that the heat exchange material does
not fatigue due to thermal cycling. Additionally, it is important that the schedule for
the heat source match the schedule for the heat load. If not, additional systems may be
required to provide heat when the waste heat source is not available. Another concern
is the ease of access to the waste heat source. In some cases, physical constraints
created by equipment arrangements prevent easy access to the heat source, or prevent
the installation of any additional equipment for heat recovering. Additionally
constraints are presented by the transportability of heat streams. Due to this, is
expected that the application of heat recovery should be physically close to the source
of waste heat for maximum benefits from recovered energy.
2.3.2 Heat recovery technologies
There are four typical types of technologies used to recover waste heat. These
include: direct usage, heat exchangers, heat pumps and vapor recompression. The first
two technologies involve using waste heat “as is”. In such situations, the waste heat is
of adequate quality for use elsewhere.
Waste heat is often available at a temperature lower than the potential load
requirement. Waste heat upgrading refers to boosting the energy level of a waste heat
stream so that it might perform more useful work than could otherwise be achieved.
This can be accomplished through the use of heat pumps or by direct vapor
compression devices.
Although waste heat recovery technologies are currently employed to varying

degrees at many industrial facilities, it still faces technical and economic barriers that

impede their wider application. In order to promote waste heat recovery and process
integration, efforts must be undertaken to extend the economic feasibility of
conventional recovery technologies, as well as promote new technologies that can be
applied to waste heat sources not typically exploited for waste heat recovery.
2.3.3 Barriers for promoting waste heat recovery practices
As mentioned, numerous barriers impact the economy and effectiveness of heat

recovery equipments and impede their wider installation. Many of these barriers,
described earlier are interrelated, but can generally be categorized as related to cost,
temperature restrictions, chemical composition, application specifics, and
inaccessibility/transportability of heat sources. In general terms a long payback period
is a constant constraint.
Another interesting fact that was verified is that roughly 60% of the waste heat
streams available to recover are in the category of low quality. While low-temperature
waste heat has less thermal and economic value than high-temperature heat, it is
ubiquitous and available in large quantities. Comparison of total work potential from
different waste heat sources showed that the magnitude of low-temperature waste heat
is sufficiently large that it should not be neglected in pursuing opportunities for its use
and recovery (U.S. Department of Energy, 2008).
In conclusion, low temperature waste heat sources appear interesting for the
objective to find an energy source to drive the sludge drying process. Assess the
viability of a drying process at low temperatures is important in order to enable the
utilization of low grade waste heat sources traditionally not used.
3 Combustion of biomass and sludge for heat and power

production: theoretical approach
A 50 MWth energy conversion facility will be used as a case study in order to

realize the mass and energy fluxes involved and the constraints of a system where it is
intended to use sewage sludge as a secondary fuel.
The facility is located in a pulp and paper industry and uses a mixture of forest
biomass residues to produce electricity. The combustion technology used is a bubbling
fluidized bed reactor. As the main line of business in this industry is pulp production,
the sludge generation is an unavoidable fact. Because of that new ways to treat this
specific waste are of major interest. One valuable option is to thermally treat the
sludge to reduce its moisture content enabling them as fuel that can be feed to the
fluidized bed combustor. In order to identify the main features of this alternative a
first theoretical approach was performed using the mass and heat balance
methodology proposed by (A. Matos, 2011). To help and support the analysis a
MATLAB routine was developed which code can be found as Appendix 1.
3.1 Mass Balance
In this section the mass balance model will be presented in conjunction with the
equations and considerations taken into account.
3.1.1 Proximate and elemental fuel analysis
Some academic surveys regarding the sludge composition were made before to
a pulp and paper industry (Fernandes, 2005). (Santos, 2012) established the typical
proximate and elemental analysis of the biomass and the sludge available as fuel in
this industrial sector. Those data are presented in Table 3.1 and will be used to
perform the theoretical analysis presented here.
3.1.2 Calorific value of the fuel
Based on the elemental composition presented in Table 3.1 the higher heating
value HHV and lower heating value LHV estimation were made for both fuels
following the proceedings of (Channiwala & Parikh, 2002 and Parikh, Channiwala, &
Ghosal, 2005). For the LHV calculation the latent heat of water vaporization was
estimated as 2440 kJ/kgH2O which corresponds to a temperature of 25ºC.

Table 3.1– Proximate and elemental analysis of biomass and sewage sludge at a pulp
and paper industry. Source: adapted from (Santos, 2012).
Biomass Sewage Sludge
Proximate Analysis (% arb)
Humidity 5,82 3,60

Volatile 73,01 44,24
Ash 1,33 45,62
Fixed Carbon* 19,84 6,54
Elemental Analysis (%db)
C 51,70 24,40
H 6,72 4,30
N 0,29 3,54
S 0,02 0,94
O* 39,86 19,00
Ash fraction 1,41 47,82
Heating Value (MJ·kg-1 db)
LHV 20,34¨ 10,00¨

* By difference
¨ Refer to section 3.1.2
3.1.3 Air consumption
Using the fuel compositions presented in Table 3.1, the stoichiometric and the
actual air consumption were calculated. The stoichiometric needs of oxidizer, (Ws,F)
was found having into account the elemental composition of the fuel mixture:
;<=>8?@ABC K8,L ∙ NL9 NR9

78,9 : F G 32 IJ I PQ P
;<9DE OL 32
Eq. (1)
K8,T G 1
where:
K8,L G SK8,U G 0,25

K8,V G 1
The actual Oxygen needs can be calculated based on a given amount of excess
air (z):
;<=> XYZ[X\ _
7W,9 : F G 78,9 ^ ` 1a
Eq. (2)
;<]DE 100
The actual needs of air (WA,F) were calculated using the following equation:
;< XYZ[X\ Xcd Ob

7b,9 : F G 7W,9 ef h
;< ]DE R>,b ∙ Og>
Eq. 3
3.1.4 Flue gas composition
Assuming the absence of gaseous components related to incomplete

combustion (e.g., CO, CH4, etc.) and having into account the elemental weighted
composition of the fuel mixture, the flue gas composition can be estimated by
performing a mass balance to each chemical element.
Some additional assumptions were done during the model development, which
are presented below:
- The temperature of the fuels (sludge and biomass) were considered in 25ºC;
- The oxidizer used is atmospheric air at 25ºC and the absolute moisture content
was estimated in 0.010 [kgH2O/ kg dry air]; taken from a standard psychometric
diagram (at 1.013×105 Pa);
- The excess air considered (z) was 50%;
- The carbon conversion efficiency considered was 100%;
- The ratio of solids present (fly and bottom ash) was 0.2 [kgV+E/kgF];
- Was not considered the formation of gaseous products due to incomplete
combustion (H2, CO, CH4, etc.);
- The air flow distribution was estimated as 80% of primary air and 20% of
secondary air.
Equations 4 to 9 were used for the application of the law of mass conservation to
the combustion system. These calculations establish the amount of combustion
products and solid residues distribution:
NT9 NTk 7k9 ∙ NTl 7l9

G ij=> `
12 12
Eq. 4
NU9 7m9 7W,9

` ` 7kb (7,66) G ip> =
12 18 32
Eq. 5
Nq9 7W,9
` (3.76) G ir>
28 32 Eq. 6

NV9
G is=>
32
Eq. 7
NR9 7m9 7W,9

` 0,5 ` t1 ` 0.5 7kb (7.66)u
32 18 32
ip> =
Eq. 8
G ij=> ` ` i=> ` is=>
2
Nv9 G Nvk 7k9 ` Nvl 7l9 Eq. 9
3.2 Energy Balance
Following the mass balance, an energy balance was performed to establish the
useful energy availability through equation 10.
∆pwxWB?Wy?8 G ∆pz8x{z| ` ∆p}w@DzB?8 ` ∆p|@8? Eq. 10
The reactants energy is given by equation:
∆pwxWB?Wy?8 G t∆pV ` ∆p~ ` ∆p• u1wxWB?Wy?8 Eq. 11
where:
∆pV,wxWB?Wy?8 G tY€9 ` 7m9 ∙ Y€m u(•9 Q • @ ) ` 7W.9

tY€=> ` (3.31) ∙ Y€r> ` (4,31) ∙ 7kb ∙ Y€p> =(<)u (•b Q • @ )
Eq. 12
∆p~,wxWB?Wy?8 G 7m9 ∙ ƒ„…,†º Eq. 13
∆p•,wxWB?Wy?8 G ‡pˆ9 Eq. 14
The sensible heat of the reactants was estimated as zero because the
temperature of the fuel and the ambient temperature were both considered as 25ºC.
The enthalpy of vaporization of water was estimated in -2.44×106 J/kgH2O.
It was considered a combustion temperature of 800ºC (1073K) in steady

conditions at the combustion chamber. This means that the gases at the outlet of the
combustion chamber have a considerable amount of sensible heat. It was considered
that most part of this energy was transferred to a proper heat recovery system (super
heater and economizer), and a small part was lost, so that the exhaust gases stream
achieves a temperature close to 150ºC at the exhaust stack. Given these assumptions
the energy content in the products was calculated through equation 15.
∆p‰ G t∆pV ` ∆p~ ` ∆p• u1}w@DzB?8 Eq. 15
where:
∆pV,}w@DzB?8 G
tN 7 ` Nvl 7l9 uY€v
J iA• ∙ OA ∙ Y€A (•Š Q • @ ) ` ‹ vk k9 Œ (•v Q • @ )
`tNTk 7k9 ` NTl 7l9 uY€B
Eq. 16
∆p~,}w@DzB?8 G 0
Eq. 17
∆p•,}w@DzB?8 G J iL9 ∙ OL ∙ ‡pˆL ` •tNTk 7k9 ` NTl 7l9 uY€T Ž‡pˆBWwE@y

Eq. 18
The average specific heat values (at constant pressure) of the combustion flue
gases at the exhaust stack, used for the calculations are given in Table 3.2.
Table 3.2 – Carbon LHV at 25ºC and average specific heat values of combustion gases, ash and
slags for a temperature of 423K, relative to 298K. Source: adapted from(Spiers, 1977).
T@423K
cpco2 1093 J·kg-1 co2 ·K-1
cpH2O 1863 J·kg-1 H2O ·K-1
cpo2 921 J·kg-1 o2 ·K-1
cpN2 1038 J·kg-1 N2 ·K-1
cpso2 1100 J·kg-1 so2 ·K-1
cpc 800 J·kg-1 C·K-1
cpz 900 J·kg-1 Z·K-1
LHVCarbon,@25ºC 3,20×107 J·kg-1 Carbon

The energy losses (∆Hlost) were considered as 10% of the energy content in the
reactants, according equation 19.
p|@8? G 0.1 ∙ pwxWB?A…x8 Eq. 19
3.3 Industrial facility of 50 MWth
Through the energy balance, the amount of fuel needed to produce 50 MWth of
useful thermal energy was calculated by equation 20.
50O7?C
ṁ{zx|,WwE G I P ` 7m9
∆pz8x{z|
Eq. 20
In order to better assess the quantity of fuel that will be handled by the energy
production facility, the water content in the final fuel mixture was also taken into
account (WWF). Therefore the calculation determines the fuel consumption at the
facility in “as received basis” (arb).
3.3.1 Drying approach
In order to have a first approach to the thermal power needed to reduce the
moisture content of the sludge, the model was extended to perform some calculations
to support the design of a dryer. Two equations were used to found the power needed
to shift the moisture content of the sludge from one state to another (Stasta et al., 2006).
The first one takes into account the enthalpy of water vaporization at 60ºC to account
the power needed to evaporate the water. The second one accounts for the heat
absorbed by the sludge cake.
|W?xy? G ṁ„,8|zD•x ∙ ƒ„…@•‘ºT Eq. 21
8xy8AE|x G ṁ8|zD•x ∙ Y€8|zD•x ∙ ’•“\[”<•,{ Q •“\[”<•,@ – Eq. 22
Additionally, in order to give to the model more accuracy in the calculations

some heat losses were considered. Those were estimated in 4% of the total drying
energy needs (Stasta et al., 2006) according equation 23.
|@8? GI |W?xy? ` 8xy8AE|x P ∙ 0,04 Eq. 23
The additional considerations for the drying calculations are presented in Table
3.3.
Table 3.3 – Parameters considered for the drying calculations. Source: adapted from (Stasta et
al., 2006b).
Quantity Unit
hwv,@60ºC 2354 kJ·kg-1water@60ºC
cpSludge 1,516 kJ·kg-1·K-1
TSludge,f 60 ºC
TSludge,o 25 ºC
To estimate the thermal power needed to drive the drying process equation 24
was used.
{ G |W?xy? ` 8xy8AE|x ` |@8?

Eq. 24
3.4 Model outputs
Based on the previous defined equations which were implemented in MATLAB

code, several tests under different conditions were performed in order to assess the
combustion behavior of sludge and biomass considering different moisture contents
and final fuel ratios. The results are presented in the following sections.
3.4.1 Useful energy analysis
The amount of useful energy available was estimated based on simulations

considering that biomass moisture content was 40 wt%, and assuming that it is
constant, and for sludge, a moisture content between 10-75 wt%. The results are
shown in Figure 3.1. In the X axis it is represented the percentage of residual forest
biomass on the fuel mixture (biomass+sludge).
It can be observed that when burning high percentage of sludge (low

percentage of residual forest biomass) with high moisture contents there is no
available energy, and the combustion process is not possible; this is observed for
sewage sludge percentages in the fuel mixture higher than 95 wt% with 50 wt%
moisture and higher than 70 wt% with 75 wt% moisture. For sewage sludge with
lower moisture content, as for example 30 wt% and 10 wt%, it is possible to sustain an
exothermic process for the operating conditions evaluated. In any case, the amount of
available energy increases with decreasing the moisture content of the fuel mixture.
According to these results, in theory, for the conditions analyzed, a fuel composed by
sewage sludge can be burned in an exothermic process if the moisture content is below
50 wt%. Moreover it can be noticed that the amount of useful energy increases with
decreasing moisture contents.

Figure 3.1 - Useful energy [MJ·kg fueldb-1] vs. biomass percentage [wt%] in the fuel mixture
(biomass + sludge). Combustion gases temperature in the furnace is 800ºC, and exhaust gases
temperature after heat recovering is 150ºC.
Analyzing from the standpoint of co-combustion, it can be observed that

starting from a 30/70 of biomass-sludge mass ratio for the fuel mixture, the process is
exothermic even for the highest moisture content (75 wt%) considered for sludge. This
means that a 30/70 biomass-sludge mass ratio is the limit of a co-combustion system
where it is intended to use the sewage sludge without previously thermally drying
treatment.
Furthermore it can be observed that when increasing the biomass percentage in

the fuel mixture the amount of useful energy increases due to the higher calorific
value of the mixture.
3.4.2 Flue gas composition
In order to analyze the flue gas composition behavior due to changes in the
fuel mixture, it was made a set of simulations for biomass and sludge moisture content
fixed in 40 wt% and 75 wt% respectively. The results are shown in Figure 3.2.
Figure 3.2 - Flue gas composition (wet gases) [Nm3·kg fueldb-1] vs. biomass fraction percentage
[wt%] in the fuel mixture. The moisture content was fixed in 40 wt% for the biomass and 75
wt% for the sludge.
It can be observed a decrease on the concentration of H2O in the flue gases with
increasing the percentage of biomass, because the amount of moisture content of the
fuel mixture is decreasing with increasing the amount of biomass. The concentration
of N2, CO2, and O2, increases with increasing the percentage of biomass because of the
decreasing in the concentration of H2O in the flue gases, and as a consequence of
decreasing the moisture content of the fuel mixture.
Since the Nitrogen content in the sludge is higher than the biomass, the high
Nitrogen emission as effluent when burning just biomass would seem contradictory.
This can be explained because the model take into account the stoichiometric air
needs, thereby, since the biomass present a highest rate of stoichiometric air needs
than sludge, and the nitrogen content in the air was estimated in 78 wt%; in the
effluents balance this increase can be noticed as an increase of Nitrogen in the flue gas.
In order to assess the effect of a drying stage for the sludge to decrease its
moisture content, for example 35 wt%, a simulation of this effect on the combustion
flue gas composition was made. The results are shown in Figure 3.3.

Figure 3.3 - Flue gas composition (wet gases) [Nm3·kg-1 fueldb] vs. biomass fraction in the final
fuel [wt%] (The moisture content was fixed in 40 wt% for the biomass and 35 wt% for the
sludge).
It is observed that the amount of H2O in the flue gas increases with increasing
the percentage of residual biomass in the fuel mixture, and this can be explained in
result of the higher biomass moisture content when compared to the sewage sludge
moisture content. According to this theoretical analysis, in terms of flue gas
composition a drying stage for the sewage sludge only has a consequent a decrease on
the amount of H2O present in gas phase.
Once the ash content in the sewage sludge is high, an exploratory analysis in
order to realize about the amount of solids production involved as a consequence of
sludge usage as secondary fuel was performed. The results are shown in Figure 3.4.
It is observed that the inclusion of sewage sludge in the fuel mixture produces
a considerably increase in the amount of solids production, and this is explained in
result of the high amount of inorganic (ash) content of the sewage sludge as shown in
Table 3.1. As referred in section 2.1.4.1 this fact can be an issue that can overcharge
some subsystems of the energy production facility, as the electrostatic precipitator for
particulate matter emission control.
Figure 3.4 - Solids production rate (bottom and fly ash) [kg ash·kg fueldb-1] vs. biomass
percentage [wt%] in the fuel mixture. The moisture content was fixed in 40 wt% for the biomass
and 75 wt% for the sludge.
All these results support the conclusion that when including sewage sludge in
the fuel mixture the energy losses in the facility can be considerable. Including sludge
with high moisture content shows that a considerable amount of latent heat will be
available in the gaseous effluent stream. Moreover it is also important to take into
account the energy content in the solid products of combustion discharged (the ashes).
Because of that in the next sections it is presented some results concerning the amount
of heat that can be recovered from the gaseous effluent stream in the form of sensible
heat and in the form of latent heat if water steam condensation is implemented as an
additional energy recovery option.
3.4.3 Analysis of a 50MWth facility
Based on the results of previous sections, the biomass feed rate required for a
thermal power plant with 50MWth was estimated. The main objective is to know the
amount of raw fuel (residual forest biomass + sewage sludge) needed to operate the
facility considering distinct sludge moisture contents and distinct percentages of
sewage sludge in the fuel mixture. In Figure 3.5 are shown results about the amount of
raw fuel need to feed the thermal power plant. It is important to note that for all the
simulations the biomass moisture content was considered as 40 wt%. The results about
the fuel mixture feed rate are presented in “as received basis” (arb) to have a more
accurately idea of the amounts involved.

Figure 3.5 - Fuel mixture feed rate [tarb/h] vs. biomass percentage [wt%] in the fuel mixture for
different sludge moisture contents (10, 30, 50 wt%). The biomass moisture content was
considered as 40 wt%.
It is important to state that the situations of high moisture content (75 wt%) of
sludge with low biomass share in the fuel mixture were not found of practical interest
(section 3.4.1). As expected it can be noticed that the amount of fuel needed by the
thermal power plant is higher when the moisture content of the sewage sludge is
higher and when the percentage of residual forest biomass in the final fuel decreases.
This result is explained by the high content of moisture and inorganic matter in the
sewage sludge. According to the results, to produce 50MWth, using a fuel composed
by 100% residual forest biomass the amount of fuel needed is close to 14 tarb/h, and
when using a mixture of 50 wt% sludge (with 50 wt% moisture) and 50 wt% biomass
(with 40 wt% moisture) the amount of fuel increases to around 18 tarb/h.
This supports the conclusion that a previous drying stage for sludge is
necessary. A drying stage can considerably reduce the volume of the fuel needed
improving the handling operations. However it will be important to conjugate the
amount of energy needed for sludge drying with the available waste heat sources in
the thermal plant. The capacity of the fuel feeders to handle a specific amount of fuel
can also be a constraint.
3.4.3.1 Waste heat assess
According to the previous data collected, two types of heat losses will be
assessed here. The heat losses associated to the flue gas as latent heat due to water
steam condensation and as sensible heat.
3.4.3.1.1 Energy content in the flue gas
Knowing the flue gas composition calculated in previous section 3.4.2, it was
estimated the amount of heat losses related to this stream in the form of sensible heat
and latent heat.
Some considerations were taken. An absolute pressure of 110 kPa and a

temperature of 150ºC were considered for the flue gas after economizer, in addition an
ambient temperature of 25ºC was considered. The heat of vaporization used for the
latent heat calculation was 2123 kJ·kg-1(Incropera, DeWitt, Bergman, & Lavine, 2007).
The biomass moisture content was assumed as 40 wt% and shifting on the sewage
sludge moisture content between 50-10 wt% was considered. The estimated waste heat
in the flue gas is shown in Figure 3.6.
Figure 3.6 - Sensible and latent heat in the flue gas [MW] vs. biomass percentage [wt%] in the
fuel mixture. Flue gas temperature considered equal to 150ºC.
The heat losses related to sensible heat decrease with the sludge moisture
content and with the increase in the mass percentage of residual forest biomass in the
fuel (Figure 3.6). These heat losses are related to the mass rate of gaseous effluent
leaving the combustion system; this in turn is related to the facility fuel consumption.
As shown in Figure 3.5 high fuel consumption rates are related to high moisture
content of the fuel mixture. When the moisture content of the fuel is high as it happens
for high sewage sludge moisture content and high share of sewage sludge in the fuel

mixture; the loss of sensible heat increases more in result of a sudden increase in the
fuel consumption of the facility.
Regarding to latent heat losses, they are related with fuel moisture content. The
higher the moisture content in the fuel mixture the higher the amount of latent heat
lost at the stack. The addition of sewage sludge with moisture content higher than 30
wt% to the fuel mixture causes considerable increase in the latent heat content of the
flue gas when compared with the situation of residual forest biomass combustion.
Effectively the emission of flue gas per unit of fuel in the case of sludge is lesser than
the biomass; in counterpart the amount of fuel needed to produce the same amount of
energy is higher in the case of sludge; this increased fuel consumption causes a sudden
increase in the mass rate of flue gas. This explains that for the cases of sludge moisture
content 30 wt% and 10 wt%, although the moisture content of the biomass is higher
(40 wt%) almost the same amount of the latent heat is lost.
Summarizing, as mentioned above the inclusion of high mass percentage of

sewage sludge in the fuel mixture, implies significant increase on the amount of fuel
consumed by the facility in order to deliver the desired thermal output. Following this
increase in the fuel consumption an increasing amount of flue gas is expected; the heat
losses are closely linked to this gaseous stream. The magnitude of losses due to latent
heat in all cases analyzed is in the order of megawatts.
3.4.3.1.2 Heat requirements for the drying process
Based on the equations presented in section 3.3.1 in conjunction with data

obtained, a first approach to estimate the thermal power involved in a hypothetical
drying system to the sewage sludge was performed.
It was evaluated the thermal power needed to dry the corresponding part of
sludge under different co-combustion cases. Therefore, the corresponding sludge mass
rate was estimated taking into account the generation of 50 MWth of useful thermal
power in the facility using the residual forest biomass + sludge mixture studied before.
The results are shown in Figure 3.7; the graphic was constructed in a way that
the Y axis shows the thermal power needed to shift the moisture content from 75 wt%
to another condition of the correspondent part of sludge of a total amount of fuel
needed to produce 50MWth. Additionally each curve of the graph represents different
co-combustion cases.
As expected, it can be noticed an increasing demand of heat to dry the sludge

with increasing the sludge percentage in the fuel mixture and also with decreasing the
sludge moisture content.
Figure 3.7 - Sludge dryer thermal power [MW] vs. sludge moisture content [wt%] for different
co-combustion cases, that is, distinct percentages of residual forest biomass and sewage sludge
in the fuel mixture.
It is important to mention that this is a rough analysis of the problem, based

only in general thermodynamic considerations. However, it can be considered for
orientation purposes about the energy fluxes involved. This information is important
because it can be compared with the heat availability calculated for the gaseous
effluent at the stack (section 3.4.3.1.1).
As mentioned in section 2.2.2.1 the drying process is a very complex process

that involves simultaneous heat and mass transfer phenomenon. More detailed
considerations about the sewage sludge behavior during drying will be analyzed in
Chapter 4.

4 Drying experiments
The sludge drying is a complex process that involves diffusion within the sludge
and heat transfer from the drying fluid to it; moreover there are other physical features
that strongly influence these processes. The behavior of this particularly type of sewage
sludge is unknown regarding to the described features in section 2.2.2 (crust
phenomena, shrinkage, cracking). In addition the time needed to shift the moisture
content from one point to another is also unknown. In this section it is intended to
establish the sewage sludge behavior when submitted to a controlled hot air stream.
The objective is to develop a model that having into account all the involved
phenomena be able to forecast the sludge final moisture content after a period of time,
under several drying conditions. The ANN was chosen as development methodology.
As exposed in section 2.2.2.2 the artificial neural networks approach presents several
advantages when compared to the physical models created based on thermodynamic
considerations.
The development of a project based on artificial neural networks involves several

stages, namely: problem definition; database acquisition, data preprocessing, network
architecture definition; training, testing and validation (Karrer, D Cameira, R. Vasques,
A. e Benzecry, 2005).
4.1 Problem definition
The main objective is to develop a model that having into account all the
phenomena’s that a drying process involves be able to forecast the final moisture
content of the sewage sludge after a certain time interval, in a process where the initial
conditions (air temperature, air moisture content and air velocity) are known.
4.2 Database acquisition
One of the principal deficiencies with current neural network research is associated
with the design of the neural networks. The design of a neural network involves the
selection of an optimal set of design parameters to achieve fast convergence speed
during training and the required accuracy during recall (Khaw, Lim, & Lim, 1995). The
state-of-the art revision shows that there is no parameter or formula that can be
followed in order to define the number of experimental tests that must be run in order
to train the network that guarantees a good error percentage in the forecasted values.
All the academic publications shows a quite non uniformity in the size of the databases
used for training achieving extra-large databases in most of the cases. The approach
chosen to address this issue relies in an experimental design methodology, the Taguchi
method.
4.2.1 The Taguchi method
This method developed by Genichi Taguchi, has been widely used for product
and process design in many manufacturing companies. The Taguchi method provides
a mathematical tool called the orthogonal array which allows the analysis of the
relationships between a large number of design parameters within the smallest number
of possible experiments. A key concept of the Taguchi method for quality is to quantify
the losses which occur because of poor quality, using loss functions (Roy, 1990).
According to the Taguchi method in order to achieve a strong and reliable

product is necessary to recognize the factors that have direct influence on the quality
and then assign them criteriously selected levels. Taguchi classifies the quality factors
between control factors and noise factors. Control factors are those able to be
supervised and modified. For this work the control factors considered were the air
temperature, the air moisture content and the air velocity. Noise factors are those that
cannot be controlled for instance the environment conditions, pollutants, etc.
As exposed in section 2.3 the validation of low grade waste heat sources is a
major concern; because of that the levels of each factor were chosen having into
account a drying process at low temperatures and considering the operational limits of
the drying tunnel. Additionally according to (Deng et al., 2009), high drying
temperatures will lead to release VOCs, VFAs and CH4. The Table 4.1 shows the
control factors considered in conjunction with their levels.
Table 4.1– Control factors and their correspondent levels established for the drying model
construction.
Levels Temperature Absolute Moisture Velocity

[ºC] [g H2O·kgair-1] [m·s-1]
1 60 15 2,5
2 45 12 2
3 35 9 1,5
Applying the factorial method the number of experiments to perform will be

twenty seven (33) due to the number of possible combinations. According to the
Taguchi method this number can be improved to nine experiments using the fractional
factorial method by an orthogonal matrix. Taguchi proposes several normalized
orthogonal matrixes; essentially at the end of the experiments each factor must use
each level the same number of times. The Table 4.2 shows the orthogonal matrix used,
adapted with the levels and factors chosen for the drying model development. Nine
different types of experiments were established, that constitute the database that will
be used to train the network.
Furthermore three additional experiments were established in order to validate

the drying model. The levels of each factor for the validation experiments 1 and 2 were
chosen randomly inside the limits shown in Table 4.2. The temperature value for the
validation test 3 was chosen out of the limits of the Table 4.2 in order to assess the
extrapolation capability of the ANN model. The summary of the levels chosen for the
validation tests are presented in Table 4.3.

Table 4.2 – Orthogonal matrix design representing the experimental conditions for each
experiment.
Temperature Absolute Relative Velocity

[ºC] Moisture humidity [m·s-1]
[g H2O·kgair-1] [%]
Taguchi 1 45 15 25 2,5
Taguchi 2 45 12 20 2
Taguchi 3 45 9 15 1,5
Taguchi 4 60 15 12 2
Taguchi 5 60 12 10 1,5
Taguchi 6 60 9 7 2,5
Taguchi 7 35 15 42 1,5
Taguchi 8 35 12 34 2,5
Taguchi 9 35 9 26 2
Table 4.3 – Experimental design for the drying model validation experiments.
Temperature Absolute Relative Velocity

[ºC] moisture humidity [m·s-1]
[g H2O·kgair-1] [%]
1 50 9 12 2,5
2 40 12 26 1,5
3 30 15 56 2
4.2.2 Convective drying experimental station
In general terms the operation mode of the drying station is as follows: the air is
forced inside the drying chamber by a fan with controlled speed. Then it is heated by
electric resistances to achieve the desired temperature. A spray system is used for
humidification and a dehumidifier is used to chill and dehumidify the air when it is
needed. Several sensors were installed in order to monitor the control factors defined
in Table 4.1.
As can be observed in Figure 4.1, the air circulates in a closed loop. The mass
loss of the sewage sludge sample during the experiments was registered by a load cell.
The sewage sludge sample was placed in a special base that minimizes the horizontal
aerodynamic drag caused by the air stream.
Figure 4.1 - View of the drying station used to perform the drying experiments. Source: (Pinho,
2012).
4.2.2.1 Ventilation system
Ventilation was performed by a centrifugal fan, driven by an AC motor which

controls the speed of the drying air. The fan reaches a maximum flow rate of 0,27 m3·s-1,
equivalent to a velocity of 3 m·s-1. The air speed was measured by an air speed
transducer manufactured by Omega, model FMA 1000, inserted into the drying tunnel
next to the drying chamber.
4.2.2.2 Heating system
The heating process is divided into two stages. The first stage or pre-heating
stage which uses two electric resistances (1 kW each) positioned after the fan. The
second stage or super heating stage which uses two additional electric resistances (0,5
kW each) located after the cooling system. The maximum temperature that the air
reaches is 60 ºC. The temperature was measured by a thermo hygrometer,
manufactured by the brand Vaisala, model HMT 100 introduced into the drying tunnel
next to the drying chamber.
4.2.2.3 Humidification system
The humidification was performed by a pneumatic nozzle which introduces a

water spray into the tunnel between the preheating zone and the cooling
/dehumidification zone by Venturi effect. The pneumatic system was set up at 4 bars
and a water reservoir was used for storing purposes. The relative humidity of the air
was measured by the same device that measures the air temperature.
4.2.2.4 Cooling/dehumidification system
The air dehumidification is intended for cool the air to reach saturation and
condense the water vapor contained therein, thereby reducing the absolute humidity of
the drying air when needed. The cooling was performed by an evaporator enclosed in
a refrigeration system comprising: a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve and

an evaporator (the working fluid was R134a). The evaporator was positioned into the
tunnel between the humidification zone and super heating zone. A schematic of the
facility is shown in Figure 4.2.
Figure 4.2 - Schematic of the drying station used to perform the drying experiments. Source:
adapted from (Boeri, 2012).
1. Centrifugal fan;
2. Humidifier;
3. Electric resistances (2 kW);
4. Dehumidifier / chiller;
5. Electric resistances (1 kW);
6. Speed transducer;
7. Thermo hygrometer;
8. Sludge sample;
9. Load cell.
4.2.2.5 Hardware and software platforms
The drying process was controlled by a MATLAB/SIMULINK® platform in

conjunction with a PCI-6025E data acquisition board of National Instruments. Four
analog inputs of 12 bits were used for monitor the real temperature, relative humidity,
air speed inside the drying chamber and the weight loss of the sewage sludge sample.
Two analog outputs of 12 bits were used to control the chiller and the centrifugal fan;
furthermore three input/output digital gates were used to control the electric
resistances and the pneumatic nozzle. The computer used was a Pentium dual core of
2,25 GHz and 2GB of RAM. A schematic of the hardware instrumentation is presented
in Figure 4.3.
Figure 4.3 - Schematic of the instrumentation at drying tunnel. Source: adapted from (Boeri,
2012).
where:
CB Centrifugal fan;
DH Dehumidifier;
R1,2 Electric resistances 1 and 2 of 1 kW each one;
R3,4 Electric resistances 3 and 4 of 0,5 kW each one;
RHR Real relative humidity;
Lc Load cell;
TR Real temperature;
U Humidifier;
vR Real speed.
The software allows programming various stages of drying. Each stage is

defined by its duration, time interval for data acquisition in conjunction with the
desired levels of temperature, humidity and velocity of the drying air. The signals
received by the computer control board are stored in a MATLAB file.
4.2.2.6 Auxiliary equipments
The auxiliary equipments used during the experiments, and that are not part of
the drying tunnel will be described in the following sections.
4.2.2.6.1 Oven
An industrial oven was used to determine the initial and final moisture content
of the sludge. The oven branch is P Selecta with automatic control of the internal
temperature.
4.2.2.6.2 Metallic containers
The metal containers are metal plates with cap, which were used to handle and
transport the sewage sludge samples.

4.2.2.6.3 Aluminium container
An Aluminum box was used to place the sewage sludge samples into the
tunnel during the drying experiments. The dimensions of the box were: length 75 mm;
width 95 mm and height 70 mm. The mass of the container was 95,99 g.
4.2.2.6.4 Desiccator
The desiccator is a device that inhibits moisture gains of the sludge sample
when placed inside. It was used to cool the metal containers when they leave the oven,
in an environment of low humidity. At the bottom there is a drying agent, typically
silica gel, along with a humidity indicator which contains cobalt salts. That salts bluish
pink when they become saturated with moisture.
4.2.2.6.5 Mass scale
A digital scale was used to measure the mass of the sludge samples before and
after its passage through the oven, and before and after every drying experiment in the
tunnel. The scale branch is Kern 434-33 and supports a load of 510 g with an accuracy
of 0,001 g.
4.2.3 Experimental proceedings
The sewage sludge samples were collected from a pulp and paper company.
They were transported in plastic bags to the laboratory, classified, weighted and
stored. The big portion of the collected sludge was intended for the combustion
experiments (section 5.1 and 5.2). The samples intended for the drying experiments
were stored inside sealed plastic bags in a freezer at 4ºC. Each drying experiment
comprises the following stages:
Two different samples were prepared at the beginning of each experiment. One
sample was used for the initial moisture content determination. The second sample
was used to perform the drying experiment at the tunnel. The correspondent weights
were registered before and after each process.
The initial moisture content determination was performed in an oven (section

4.2.2.6.1), heating the samples to 105ºC for 3 hours in average. The amount of water
removed by the drying process at the oven was found by equation 25.
—„ G —@ Q —{ Eq. 25
The moisture content of a product generally is expressed in function of the

mass of the dry matter, because it remains constant along all the drying process unlike
the mass of the wet solid, that can change, hence it is not indicated to express the
moisture content (Boeri, 2012).
Therefore the initial moisture content in dry basis (weight ratio) was found
through equation 26.
—@ Q —{
p‘ G
—{
Eq. 26
Subsequently duration of 16200 seconds was programmed for each drying

experiment. It is pretended to achieve moisture contents of the samples after the tunnel
below 50 wt% moisture content as justified in section 3.4.1.
The data acquisition was programmed to record the main drying parameters
every 90 seconds. At the end of the experiment, the sewage sludge sample weight was
registered. The final moisture content determination was performed in an oven
(section 4.2.2.6.1), heating the samples to 105ºC for 3 hours approximately. The final
moisture content (weight ratio) in dry basis was established by equation 27.
—8{ Q —@˜‘™ªT
p{ G
—@˜‘™ºT
Eq. 27
where: msf represents the mass of the sludge sample after the drying
experiments in the tunnel and m@105ºC represents the mass of the sludge sample after
drying in the oven at 105 ºC.
4.2.3.1 Sewage sludge behavior during drying experiments
During the drying experiments a set of observations was performed. The

objective was to define if the characteristics described by the bibliography (section
2.2.2.1) for municipal sewage sludge are similar to those generated at the pulp and
paper factories.
Essentially, the behavior of the sewage sludge sample during drying (Taguchi 4;
Taguchi 5 and Taguchi 6) can be described as follows:
- During the first hour a slight change in the color of the sample at its surface was
observed. This suggests that the water at the surface of the sample was
evaporated. The shrinkage phenomenon (only visually registered) at this stage
is not pronounced.
- During the following thirty minutes the first cracks began to appear at the
surface of the sewage sludge sample, especially in the center.
- At the end of the second hour it can be noticed a separation between the sewage
sludge sample and the walls of the Aluminum case.
- During the first thirty minutes of the third hour the cracks began to be deeper
and the shrinkage phenomena increases considerably.

- At the end of the third hour the shrinkage phenomena continues and the
sample started to curve upward (Figure 4.4).
Figure 4.4 - Crack formation and curve upward of the sludge sample (4 hours at 60ºC)
- During the first minutes of the fourth hour the sample seems brittle and small
fragments were detached from the main cake.
- During the last twenty minutes no major changes was noticed. At the end of the
drying experiment it can be observed that the core of the cake remains
minimally wet while the external surface looks dry.
After the drying experiment the sewage sludge sample appears rigid and brittle in
contrast with the initial, plastic paste appearance. Moreover important changes in the
texture of the material were verified. The sewage sludge sample looks compact but
easy to fragment. Furthermore the sewage sludge sample was completely detached of
the walls of the Aluminum case and a considerable volume reduction was noticed
(Figure 4.5).
Figure 4.5 - Shrinkage phenomena and volume reduction of the sludge sample after a drying
experiment (4,5 hours at 60ºC).
It is important to note that at the beginning the sewage sludge samples present a
strong and concentrated smell. After the drying experiments a considerable reduction
of the odors was noticed.
In fact all the phenomena reported by literature were verified in the sludge samples
studied (shrinkage, crust phenomenon, cracks). The state-of-the-art revision suggests
that the crust phenomenon strongly influences the drying time. Regarding this last,
two types of sewage sludge can be differentiated, one with a strong crust phenomena
which the time needed for experiments are considerably longer; 11 hours
approximately (R. Font, M.F. Gomez-Rico, 2011) and the second type where the crust
phenomena is present but is not a constraint for the moisture removal. The time
needed for the drying experiments for the sewage sludge samples studied was in the
range of the ones observed for sewage sludge samples with weak crust phenomena.
4.3 Experimental results: data preprocessing
The training of a neural network requires the definition of a set of inputs that
offers information about the process that is intended to simulate and also a set of
targets. Five parameters were established as inputs, namely: the initial moisture
content (weight ratio), the time, the air velocity, the air temperature and the air
humidity. The instantaneous moisture content of the sludge sample was chosen as
target. The sample weight recorded by the load cell was used to found the
instantaneous moisture content of the sludge sample during the drying process.
Equation 28 was used for the referred calculation.
p{ Q p@
pA G › (—A Q —8@ ) ` p@
—8{ Q —8@
Eq. 28
where: mi is the instantaneous mass of the sludge sample measured by the load
cell; mso is the mass of the sewage sludge sample before the drying experiment at the
tunnel; msf is the mass of the sewage sludge sample after the experiment at the tunnel;
Ho is the initial moisture content (weight ratio) and Hf is the final moisture content
(weight ratio).
For database construction all the parameters used as inputs with exception of
the initial moisture content and the final moisture content were normalized between
zero and one in order enhance the training stage. This action avoid the attribution of
excessive weight to big numbers in the database (Gonçalves, 2012). The drying kinetics
represented by graphs of each experiment under the Taguchi methods can be found in
Appendix 2.
During the drying experiments a considerable oscillation was verified in the

signal coming from the load cell. This oscillation was caused by the air flow inside the
tunnel which produces an air drag in the sewage sludge sample support device. This
air drag induces some noise in the recorded signal. Furthermore the weight of the
sewage sludge sample also has a big influence on this issue. When the mass of the

sample was bigger, the noise signal was lesser. The mass of the Aluminum container
was increased and the signal was stabilized through the use of low-pass filters.
Nevertheless small deviations in the weigh lost signal can be observed. A result
resume of the drying experiments in the tunnel in conjunction with the results of the
validation experiments are presented in Table 4.4.
Table 4.4 – Initial and final moisture content of the sewage sludge samples after the experiments
at the tunnel. Moisture content expressed as weigh ratio, dry basis [kgH2O·kgsludge db-1].
Initial moisture Final moisture

content content
[kgH2O·kgsludge db-1] [kgH2O·kgsludge db-1]
Taguchi 1 0,79 0,24

Taguchi 2 0,80 0,23
Taguchi 3 0,83 0,47
Taguchi 4 0,70 0,14
Taguchi 5 0,70 0,14
Taguchi 6 0,81 0,06
Taguchi 7 0,94 0,82
Taguchi 8 0,95 0,84
Taguchi 9 0,95 0,67
Validation 1 0,98 0,14
As mentioned in section 4.2.3 moisture content was calculated as weight ratio

(dry basis). Nevertheless in industry, moisture content is commonly expressed in wet
basis. Having into account that the theoretical analysis performed in section 3.4.1
considers the moisture content in wet basis, a resume of the final moisture contents
achieved after the drying experiments expressed in the referred basis is presented in
Table 4.5.
It can be observed that for the Taguchi experiments 1 to 6 the final moisture
content achieved is suitable for combustion with energy recovery as demonstrated in
section3.4.1. For the Taguchi experiments 7 and 8 the moisture contents achieved are
close to the limit where endothermic reactions were verified. An exception can be
noticed for the Taguchi experiment 9 where, relatively low moisture content was
achieved when compared with the same set of experiments which can be explained by
the low moisture content in the drying air considered.
Table 4.5– Final moisture content of the sewage sludge samples after the experiments at the
tunnel. Moisture content expressed in wet basis [wt%].
Final moisture
content
[wt%]
Taguchi 1 15
Taguchi 2 19
Taguchi 3 31
Taguchi 4 13
Taguchi 5 12
Taguchi 6 6
Taguchi 7 45
Taguchi 8 45
Taguchi 9 33
Validation 1 12
Validation 2 38
Validation 3 43
4.4 Network architecture definition
As mentioned in section 2.2.2.2.1 the creation of an ANN model requires the

definition of a specific architecture. (Gonçalves, 2012) establishes that most of the
problems addressing forecasting the final values of a process can be successfully
modeled with just one hidden layer. A feedforward model with one hidden layer was
chosen. The Pearson coefficient was used to assess the correlation between the ANN
model and the validation experiments. It was observed that adding hidden layers the
performance of the ANN decreases.
After the established of the number of hidden layers, the number of neurons
was defined by a trial and error method. It was found that from a certain point,
increasing the number of neurons the performance of the neural network decreases. At
the end of this process four neurons were considered for the hidden layer.
According to (Gonçalves, 2012) the most suitable transfer functions addressing

forecast problems are the hyperbolic tangent sigmoid transfer function and the log-
sigmoid transfer function. Nonetheless several transfer functions were tested according
to Table 2.2. At the end it was found that the hyperbolic tangent sigmoid transfer
function produces the best results.
The referred document suggests two types of training algorithms to treat with
forecasting issues namely Levenberg-Marquardt and Bayesian Regularization.
Nonetheless several training algorithms were tested according to Table 2.3. At the end
it was found that the Bayesian Regularization algorithm produces the best results. The
training phase was performed by back-propagation comparing the input and output
arrays until the error achieves a minimum value. An over-fitting issue was reported by

several researchers that can be verified when the error asked to achieve is too small.
The mean square error was the network performance function chosen, which measures
the network's performance according to the mean of squared errors. The maximum
permissible error for the training phase was set up in 10-5 and the maximum number of
iterations to obtain convergence was set up in 300 epochs.
4.5 Testing and validation
A validation stage was performed in order to test the generalization capabilities of

the model. According to Table 4.3 three validation experiments were established. The
validation experiment 1 and 2 were configured inside the limits of the database used to
train the ANN. The validation experiment 3 was configured out of the database used to
train the ANN, in order to assess the extrapolation ability of the network to forecast
values out of the training database. A graphical representation of the results is
presented in Figure 4.6.
As mentioned in section 4.3, the mass loss signal sensed by the load cell presented
some oscillations. It was observed that fluctuations in the air flow produced by the
variation of speed of the air blower causes vibrations on the sample support which
introduces noise in the signal. It was found that this noise issue is lesser as the mass of
the sample is higher.
Figure 4.6 - Representation of the validation experiments in conjunction with the forecast curve
given by the ANN model.
For the first case (validation1) where the initial mass is less than the other
experiments and a considerable mass loss were verified, the noise introduced to the
signal was higher. The Pearson correlation coefficient between the ANN model and the
validation experiments are presented in Table 4.6.

Table 4.6 – Pearson correlation coefficient obtained for the validation experiments.
Pearson correlation coefficient

Validation experiment 1 0,972
In fact the correlation between the ANN model and the validation experiments
for the experiments considered inside the limits of the training database is high. For the
validation experiment 3 which the temperature value is out of the training database a
lesser correlation can be observed. The curve generated by the model does not follow
the real behavior of the sludge sample. However the final moisture content calculated
by the model is close to the final moisture content value determined by
experimentation. The Table 4.6 shows the difference between the final moisture content
calculated by the model and the final moisture content calculated by experimentation.
Table 4.7 – Final moisture content of the sludge sample calculated by the ANN model and final
moisture content of the sludge sample obtained by experimentation
Real ANN model

[kgH2O·kgsludge db-1] [kgH2O·kgsludge db-1]
Validation experiment 1 0,14 0,09
As mentioned in section 2.3 the energy supply of the drying process should be
done using waste heat sources. It was mentioned in section 2.3.3 that roughly 60% of
the waste heat streams available to recover are in the category of low quality.
Additionally as mentioned the use of low drying temperatures can prevent the release
of dangerous gases during drying and also prevent product degradation.
There might be a wide variety of waste heat sources available to drive the
drying process; accordingly the range of temperatures at which the drying process can
be carried out may be diverse. It is expected that this drying kinetic model can give
reliable information about the final moisture content that can be achieved considering
several temperatures and drying parameters. As complement, chapter 2 offers
information about the consequences of operate a combustion system under several
feeding fuel moisture contents. Conjugating this information a reliable forecast of the
performance of the system can be done.
5 Combustion experiments
In order to study the sewage sludge as fuel in a pilot scale fluidized bed combustor
a set of experiments were designed. Two types of sample fuels were prepared, one was
100 wt% sludge (fuel sample 1) and the other was 50 wt% sewage sludge plus 50 wt%
residual forest biomass (fuel sample 2) to perform the study in terms of reactor
temperatures profile and flue gas composition.
The sewage sludge samples were collected in a pulp and paper industry and
transported to the laboratory. Following the procedures established in section 4.2.3 in
conjunction with equation 26, the initial moisture content of the sludge was established
in 0,70 [kg H2O · kgsludgewb-1].
5.1 Fuel sample 1
A sample fuel (here designated by fuel sample 1) composed by 100 wt% sewage
sludge was prepared. The sludge was manually shredded and extended on plastic
sheets which were exposed to atmospheric conditions in order to reduce its moisture
content. After several days even though weather conditions were quite unstable, with
fairly frequent rainy periods a reduction in the moisture content of the fuel samples
was observed.
An important shrinkage phenomenon were verified which leads to a

considerable volume reduction. Furthermore the dried sludge changes its initial plastic
phase appearance by a strong and consolidated solid material that looks like small
stones. Some of those small stones agglomerate to others forming larger pieces; for that
reason a manual crush was need. The particle size distribution of fuel sample 1 after
atmospheric conditions drying is shown in Table 5.1.
Table 5.1 - Granulometric distribution of the fuel sample 1.
Particle diameter Mass retained on the sieve

[mm] [ kg ·kg fuel1-1]
dp > 4 0,104
2 > dp < 4 0,098
1 > dp < 2 0,044
0,5 > dp < 1 0,021
dp< 0,5 0,012
It is also important to note that at the beginning the sludge samples presented a
strong smell that was gradually disappearing as the moisture content decreases. At the
end a slightly smell still persisted. The macroscopic characteristics of fuel sample 1
after atmospheric conditions drying are shown in Figure 5.1.

Figure 5.1 - Macroscopic characteristics of fuel sample 1.
The main features of the sludge used for the preparation of the fuel sample can
be characterized in terms of elemental composition according to Table 3.1. However a
detailed study to find the final moisture content and the ash content of the fuel samples
prepared was performed which can be found in section 5.3.
5.2 Fuel sample 2
The second sample (fuel sample 2) was designed in order to operate the reactor
with a mixture of 50 wt% sewage sludge (70 wt% moisture) plus 50 wt% residual forest
biomass (13 wt% moisture). These fine particles show some undesirable operating
problems during combustion in the pilot scale fluidized bed reactor, so it was
considered the evaluation of its mixture with sewage sludge in order to produce a
better quality fuel.
The procedure used to mix the sludge with the fine particles from residual
forest biomass shredding was as follows. Firstly the sludge was manually extruded
using a sieve producing small pellets of 4 to 5 mm diameter and 7 to 8 mm length
approximately. While the sludge was extruded, the eucalyptus sawdust was manually
added. A 100 liters plastic bucket with cylindrical shape was used to mix the material.
Then the sludge pellets and the eucalyptus sawdust were manually agitated to enhance
their mixture, especially to facilitate the incorporation of the biomass fine particles into
the sludge. Subsequently the plastic bucket was agitated manually, following
cylindrical movements resembling a concrete mixing drum. The fuel mixture start to
form spherical particles which diameter strongly depends on the bucket rotational
speed. At the end the fuel sample was manually extended on plastic sheets which were
exposed to atmospheric conditions in order to reduce its moisture content. After
several days even though weather conditions were quite unstable, with fairly frequent
short raining periods a reduction in the moisture content of the fuel samples was
observed.
Unlike fuel sample 1 the volume of particles from fuel sample 2 after drying at
atmospheric conditions presents a smaller volume reduction. The resultant fuel
appears as a consolidated material however easily deformable under hand pressure. It
is important to note that the incorporation of the sawdust was extremely effective. In
fact the sawdust appears as fibers embedded in the core of each fuel particle. The
macroscopic characteristics of fuel sample 2 after atmospheric conditions’ drying is
shown in Figure 5.2.
Figure 5.2 - Macroscopic characteristics of fuel sample 2.
Regarding the main features of the sludge and residual forest biomass used
(eucalyptus sawdust), their elemental composition was considered that of Table 3.1.
The moisture content and organic matter content determination is presented in section
5.3.
5.3 Moisture, organic matter and ash content of the fuel samples
The moisture, organic matter and ash content of the fuel samples prepared were
determined, because these features can have an important influence in the combustion
efficiency. Representative samples taken from different parts of the fuel bulk were
collected for analysis.
The fuel samples were properly mixed and mechanically crushed with a mill to
reduce their granulometry. Then three replicas of each fuel sample were prepared.
For moisture content determination the samples were heated in an oven for
three hours at 105ºC. The moisture content determination was found following the
proceedings described in section 4.2.3 and using equation 26.
For the organic matter and ash content determination, after the drying stage an
additional gradual heating stage was performed in a muffle furnace equipped with a

ramping program (Sluiter et al., 2008). The furnace temperature ramp program was
configured as follows:
- Ramp from room temperature to 105ºC;

- Hold at 105ºC for 12 minutes;
- Ramp to 250ºC at 10ºC per minute;
- Ramp to 550ºC at 20ºC per minute;
- Allow temperature to drop to 105ºC;
- Hold at 105ºC until samples are removed.
At the end the samples were placed in a desiccator until cool down, and then were
weighted. The organic matter content (OM) in percentage was calculated using
equation 29.
—œ[•\@…xy@˜‘™ºT Q —œ[•\{zwyWBx@™™‘ºT
=O G › 100
—œ[•\@…xy@˜‘™ºT
Eq. 29
where:
—œ[•\g••i@105ºj represents the mass of the fuel sample after the drying stage in the oven
at 105ºC, —œ[•\œ[diXY•@550ºj represents the fuel sample mass that remains after the end of
the muffle furnace ramp program. The ash content was determined by difference to
100% relative to the organic matter content. The final results obtained are shown in
Table 5.2.
Table 5.2 – Moisture content of the fuel samples in as received basis and organic matter and ash
content of the fuel samples in dry basis
Moisture Organic Ash,db

content,wb matter,db [wt%]
[wt%] [wt%]
Fuel sample 1 27 50,6 49,4
Fuel sample 2 36 69,6 30,3
*Ash determined by difference
A considerable difference in the moisture content between the fuel sample 1

and fuel sample 2 can be noticed. As mentioned the drying stage was performed under
atmospheric conditions. Therefore there was no control on the sun radiation that each
sample receives and the heat and mass transfer can also be affected by the changes in
the convective heat transfer coefficient due to the wind. In addition the weather
conditions were not the same for each sample and during the drying stage frequently
short raining periods were observed.
5.4 Experimental facility: pilot-scale bubbling fluidized bed combustor
The combustion experiments were conducted in a pilot-scale Bubbling

Fluidized Bed Combustor (BFBC). The reactor is a thermally insulated AISI 310 SS tube
with 0,25 m of internal diameter and 3 m height. The layout of the experimental facility
is presented in Figure 5.1. The bed is operated with sieved silica sand (0,250 mm < dp,b<
0,710 mm), with a static height of 0,23 m; of which 0,14 m are located above the
fluidizing air injectors. The reactor is equipped with a top reactor double screw feeding
system for simultaneous and independent solid fuels feeding (two top reactor fuel
feeders). The combustion air was staged, with primary air fed through injectors located
in the distributor plate and secondary air above the bed injected at 0,30 m above the
distributor plate (that is 0,07 m). The fuel was above bed fed, and was added in
conjunction with the secondary air through a vertical tube located inside the freeboard;
thus, the fuel particles were continuously dropped at the bed surface.

Figure 5.3 - Schematic representation of the pilot scale installation. Dashed line – Electric circuit,
Continuous line – Pneumatic circuit, A – Primary air heating system, B – Sand bed, C – Bed
solids level control, D – Bed solids discharge, E – Bed solids discharge silo, F – Propane burner
system, G – Port for visualization of bed surface, H – Air flow meter (primary and secondary
air), I – Control and command unit (UCC2), J – Biomass feeder, K – Water cooled gas sampling
probe, L,M,P,Q – Command and gas distribution units (UCD0, UCD1, UCD2, UCD3), N – Gas
sampling pump, O – Gas condensation unit for moisture removal, R,S,T,U,V,W – Automatic on
line gas analyzers (HC, NO, CO2, N2O, O2, CO), X – Electronic command unit (UCE1), Y –
Computer data acquisition and control system, Z – Exhaust duct to cyclone and bag-house
filter. Source: (Tarelho, Neves, & Matos, 2011).
Pressure, temperature and combustion flue gas can be sampled by means of

eight water-cooled probes located at several heights along the reactor, two of which are
immersed in the dense bed of particles and the rest located along the freeboard. Each
sampling probe is equipped with an external circulating quenching water sleeve, an
ice-cooled particle filter, a K-type thermocouple and a cerablanket plug at the tip for
particle filtering. For the experiments only the thermocouples were used for
monitoring the temperature profile along the reactor height.
A dedicated probe with the tip located inside the exhaust pipe of the reactor
(Figure 5.3) was used for gas sampling using a heated line, in order to monitor the exit
flue gas composition. Then the sample gas is conducted to a Fourier Transform
Infrared Spectroscopy on line analyzer (FTIR). Several gases were continuously
monitored, nonetheless for this case mainly the O2, CO and CO2 concentration will be
used in order to evaluate the performance of the combustion process. The schematic of
the heated flue gas sample line is presented in Figure 5.4.
Figure 5.4 - Schematic representation of the flue gases heated sampling line.
For O2 monitoring in the exit flue gas a paramagnetic analyzer was used (ADC
model O2-700 with a Servomex Module); the exit gas from the FTIR was dried prior to
be analyzed in the paramagnetic analyzer (Figure 5.4). Furthermore, a Zirconia cell
probe located inside the BFB furnace (freeboard region) was also used for real time
monitoring of O2. Uncertainties associated with gas composition measurements in the

on-line analyzers are below 2% full scale.
The operation and monitoring of the reactive system, the gas sampling system
and data acquisition (temperature, pressure and gas concentration) system was
performed by a computer based control and data acquisition hardware and software
system (Tarelho et al., 2011).
5.4.1 Reactor setup
The combustion experiments were planned so that the hydrodynamics of the

reactor was kept similar during experiments. For that purpose the primary air flow rate
was adjusted in order to keep the fluidizing velocity between 2,5 and 3 times the
minimum fluidizing velocity, that is, between 0,28 and 0,30 ms-1 depending on the bed
temperature. The secondary and tertiary air was adjusted in order to each of them
represent 15% of total combustion air. On following, the stoichiometry of combustion
was established independently by proper adjustment of the solid biomass fuel feed
rate. The bed temperature was maintained at the desired level by means of regulating
the insertion of a set of eight water-cooled probes located at the bed level (Tarelho et
al., 2011).
The monitoring of temperature at different heights along the reactor was made
with the probes tip at half distance between the reactor wall and the axial line. The
measurements (temperature and gas composition) were taken with the reactor
operating at pre-set steady state conditions. At specified feeding conditions of air and
biomass, the steady state condition was evaluated by monitoring the bed temperature
and the exit flue gas composition (in terms of O2 and CO2 concentration); the
Zirconium probe was helpful for this purpose because it gives reliable information
about the Oxygen concentration at the core of the reactor.
For operation of the pilot scale fluidized bed reactor two different stages can be
established: the pre-heating stage where the main objective is to rise the bed
temperature to 500 ºC to achieve fluidization conditions (simultaneously with the
addition of primary air) and a second phase of combustion using solid fuel where the
temperature ranges from 700 to 1000 ºC, to perform the experiments.
For the pre-heating stage a mixture of propane with air is used to rise the
temperature of the reactor. The propane combustion is done through a pilot burner.
This burner keeps a stable flame which is independent of the fluidizing air. The flame
is controlled visually through two viewports. At the same time the bed temperature
was controlled through the data acquisition system using the information coming from
the thermocouples. When a temperature of 500ºC was achieved, the addition of solid
fuel started. In this case the experiments started with solid biomass. When the reactor
achieves a temperature of 750ºC the preheating system was turned off and the reactor
operates with solely solid fuel. When the operation was stable the addition of the fuel
samples prepared was performed.

Since the fuel samples were continuously added to the bed, it was necessary to
control the bed height. As shown in Table 5.2 the ash content in the fuel is considerably
high, for this reason a procedure of bed discharge was implemented in order to
prevent the rise up of the bed solids level. For this purpose, periodically openings of
the bed discharge port permitted to withdraw a known amount of bed solids, mainly
ash that accumulated at bed surfaced, in order to keep the bed height. No
agglomeration neither defluidization events related to the fuel ash were observed
despite several hours (around 7 to 8) of operation.
5.5 Combustion experiments
The combustion experiments were performed in order to evaluate the influence

of fuel characteristics (fuel sample 1 and fuel sample 2) and excess oxygen
concentration on the flue gas temperature and composition; it was maintained the
bubbling bed temperature between 800 to 850ºC. The exhaust gases composition (H2O,
O2, CO2, CO) for distinct operating conditions is shown in Figure 5.5 to 5.9.
In Figure 5.5 is shown the flue gas composition, wet gases and dry gases,
during shredded residual forest biomass combustion (derived from eucalyptus), with
particle diameters between 1 and 10 mm. Although the flue gas composition in terms
of CO2 and H2O shows some fluctuations, the system is operating in steady state
conditions; the fluctuations in the flue gas concentration are related to fluctuations in
the fuel feeding and reflects the heterogeneous characteristics of the biomass fuel
particles. The CO2 and H2O behavior is very similar and reflects the moisture release
and oxidation rate of the carbon and hydrogen present in the biomass fuel. The
moisture content of the flue gases is the range 11 to 12 %v (wet gases). The oxygen
concentration in the flue gases was in range 6 to 7%v (dry gases)
The CO shows high fluctuations and its concentration looks very sensitive to
fluctuations in biomass feeding; in fact, concentration values in the range 200 to 1000
ppmv (dry gases) can be observed. These fluctuations in CO concentration are also
related to the typical high volatile content of the biomass fuels, which is traduced by an
intense gas phase combustion and thus very sensitive to fuel feeding conditions.
Figure 5.5 - Flue gas composition during the combustion of residual forest biomass derived
from eucalyptus, under typical stoichiometric conditions.

After a period of residual forest biomass combustion, it was introduced the fuel
sample 1 (sewage sludge). The screw feeders did not present problems to handle and
transport the material to the reactor. After some minutes a stable bed temperature of
850ºC was achieve. The flue gas composition obtained during the combustion
experiments with two levels of excess oxygen are shown in Figure 5.6 and Figure 5.7; in
each figure are presented information for H2O, CO2 and CO on wet gases and dry
gases, and for O2 in dry gases.
It is observed H2O concentration is higher than that of CO2 (Figure 5.6), in

opposition to that observed during residual forest biomass combustion, and explained
by the higher moisture content of the sewage sludge (Table 5.2). Also, it is important to
refer that H2O and CO2 concentration show less fluctuations when compared to that
observed during residual forest biomass combustion; in part, this can be explained in
result of better transportation qualities of this fuel when compared to the residual
forest biomass. In average, the CO concentration is lower than that observed during
combustion of residual forest biomass, despite the lower O2 concentration value during
sludge combustion (Figure 5.6).
Decreasing the stoichiometry, corresponding to O2 concentration around 2.5%v

(dry gases) in the exit flue gases during combustion of sewage sludge, it is observed
that the CO2 concentration in the exit flue gases is higher than that of H2O, and an
increase on the average CO concentration was achieved (Figure 5.7); nevertheless, in
result of a slight increase on stoichiometry, as reflected by a slight increase on the O2
concentration in the exit flue gas, the CO concentration decreased to an acceptable level
(considering the relatively low stoichiometry) during the second half period of the
combustion test (Figure 5.7). For this lower stoichiometry condition it is observed a
very regular pattern on the H2O, CO2 and O2 pattern along the time, reflecting good
feeding conditions for this fuel.
The bed temperature achieved during this reduced stoichiometry operating

condition was higher than that observed during combustion of sludge under the
previous condition of higher stoichiometry. This increase in bed temperature is a
consequence of the lower stoichiometry of operation, and related to the increase on fuel
feed rate to the reactor, thus a higher thermal input.
It is important to state that, besides the combustion of 100% sewage sludge it

were not observed neither agglomeration neither defluidization conditions. More
information about the solids (bottom ash) production during these experiments will be
presented in section 5.5.2.
Figure 5.6 - Flue gas composition during the combustion of fuel sample 1 under typical
stoichiometric conditions.

Figure 5.7 - Flue gas composition during combustion of fuel sample 1 with reduced
stoichiometry.
After the combustion experiments with sewage sludge (fuel sample 1), it were
performed combustion experiments with fuel sample 2 (mixture of biomass with
sludge), and some results are presented in Figures 5.8 and 5.9, for two conditions of
excess oxygen in the combustion flue gas.
As also observed for sewage sludge combustion, the mixture sewage sludge
plus residual forest biomass (particle size <1mm) showed good transportation
characteristics in the screw feeding system of the pilot scale fluidized bed reactor.
Those good transportation conditions are reflected in a very steady concentration of
H2O, CO2, and O2 in the combustion flue gases along the time (Figure 5.8 and Figure
5.9).
For the first experimental condition (Figure 5.8) the O2 concentration in the exit
flue gas (5%v, dry gases) was slight lower than that in the previous experiments with
residual forest biomass or with sewage sludge, but in the range often used in industrial
installations with fluidized bed combustors. It is important to state that despite a slight
lower oxygen concentration in the flue gases (thus lower stoichiometry), during
combustion of this mixture the CO concentration in the flue gases was significantly
lower than that observed previously during residual forest biomass combustion and
also during sewage sludge combustion.
By increasing the fuel mixture feed rate, the stoichiometry of operation was
decreased, as reflected by the decrease on O2 concentration in the flue gases (Figure
5.9). It was noticed that this fraction of fuel mixture was wetter than the previous one
(Figure 5.8) as evidenced by the increase in the moisture content (around 21%v, wet
gases) in the flue gases (Figure 5.9). Nevertheless, good fuel feeding conditions were
maintained, as reflected by a very uniform composition of the combustion flue gas in
terms of H2O, CO2 and O2 concentration along the time.
The CO concentration increased when compared to the condition of higher

stoichiometry (Figure 5.8), but in average was lower when compared to the observed
during residual forest biomass (Teixeira, 2013) or sewage sludge combustion under
similar conditions of oxygen concentrations in combustion gases (Figure 5.7)
These experiments allow concluding about the feasibility of mixing residual

forest biomass with sewage sludge in order to produce a fuel mixture with appropriate
characteristics to be used in fluidized bed combustors.

Figure 5.8 - Flue gas composition during combustion of fuel sample 2 under typical
stoichiometric conditions.
Figure 5.9 - Flue gas composition during combustion of fuel sample 2 with reduced
stoichiometry.

A comparison of the average CO concentration of each experiment period and

the CO emission level limits according to the Portuguese law (Portaria 677/2009) were
done. Normalized conditions of pressure (101,3 kPa), temperature (273,15 K) and dry
gas were considered. The average CO concentration for each stage was expressed in
mg·Nm-3 and corrected to 11% of O2 concentration in the flue gas according to the
following equation:
j˜ Q j>
ž…‘ G ∙ž
j> Q j‘ …˜
Eq. 30
where:
Gv0 represents the CO concentration in [mg·Nm-3] corrected for 11% of O2

concentration in the flue gas. C1 represents the O2 concentration in the air expressed in
[%v]. C2 represents the desired O2 concentration expressed in [%v]. C0 represents the
actual O2 concentration in the flue gas expressed in [%v] and Gv1 represents the actual
CO concentration in the flue gas expressed in [mg·Nm-3] (M. A. A. Matos & Pereira,
2010). The results are presented in Figure 5.10.
Figure 5.10 - Comparison of average CO concentration in the flue gas [mg·Nm-3] corrected for
an 11% of O2 dry gases vs. average O2 concentration [%v] measured for each combustion period.
It was observed that the emission level of 500 mg·Nm-3 was exceeded in the
combustion period 3 (Figure 5.7). It is important to note that the stoichiometry of the
first stage of this period was very low. In the second stage of this period the emission
levels were stabilized to values previously observed due to a correction in the
stoichiometry value; nevertheless the high values achieved during the first stage of this
period strongly influence the average value.
It also can be observed a very low CO emission level for the period 4 (Figure
5.8) which reflects high efficiency of combustion. However in all the cases analysed
with the exception above mentioned the emission levels were under the limits
established by the Portuguese law. Furthermore it can be noticed that CO
concentration of the fuel samples prepared with the exception above mentioned are
below the CO concentration observed during residual forest biomass combustion. In
addition the stoichiometry used for the combustion of the fuel samples prepared was
always lower than the stoichiometry used during the residual forest biomass
combustion.
5.5.1 Temperature profiles
The temperature profile along the reactor height was monitored during the
combustion experiments, and the results are shown in Figure 5.11.
Five different periods are identified in Figure 5.11, and correspond to data
presented before in Figures 5.5 to 5.9, and corresponding to distinct fuel compositions
and excess oxygen (operating stoichiometry). The periods identified in Figure 5.11 can
be described as follows:
- [1] Reactor operation with residual forest biomass; example of flue gas
composition was shown in Figure 5.5.
- [2] Reactor operation with sewage sludge and typical operating stoichiometric
conditions; example of flue gas composition was shown in Figure 5.6.
- [3] Reactor operation with sewage sludge and reduced stoichiometry; example
of flue gas composition was shown in Figure 5.7.
- [4] Reactor operation with a mixture of residual forest biomass with sewage
sludge and typical operating stoichiometric conditions; example of flue gas
composition was shown in Figure 5.8.
- [5] Reactor operation with a mixture of residual forest biomass with sewage
sludge and reduced stoichiometry; example of flue gas composition was shown
in Figure 5.9.

Figure 5.11 - Temperature inside the reactor along the time for the set of experimental
conditions analysed before and corresponding to some data presented in Figures 5.5 (period1),
5.6 (period 2), 5.7 (period 3), 5.8 (period 4) and 5.9 (period 5), at several locations along the
reactor height.
It is observed that the temperature along the reactor height shows slightly
changes along the time and related to modifications in the operational conditions of the
reactor, namely the characteristics of the fuel and combustion stoichiometry.
Nevertheless the higher temperatures are always located in the freeboard region above
the fuel discharge point (T4, T5, T6 in Figure 5.11), and are consistent with the fact that
biomass fuels are characterized by a very important gas phase combustion process.
When analyzing the temperature along the time, two significant drops in the
bed temperature can be noticed and are related to changes in the type of fuel used. The
first one was noticed on the transition from residual forest biomass fuel, to a more wet
fuel (fuel sample 1) then, during the transition from period 3 to period 4. During the
initial stage of period 4 a sharp decrease on the temperature was observed and was
related to the shift from fuel sample 1 to fuel sample 2; this decrease in temperature
was related to the higher moisture content of fuel sample 2, that imposed the need of
increase the fuel feed rate in order to rise the temperature. Nevertheless, the bed
temperature was controlled within the range of 800ªC to 850ºC.
The temperature profiles along the reactor height for the five above-mentioned
combustion periods identified in Figure 5.11 are shown in Figure 5.12. It can be seen
that the higher temperatures were observed when the reactor was operating with
residual forest biomass (period 1). During combustion of sewage sludge and the
mixture of sewage sludge with residual forest biomass (periods 2, 3, 4 and 5) the
temperature along the reactor height is lower than that observed during combustion of
biomass (period 1) and is related to the characteristics of the fuel, namely the higher
amount of organic content and moisture content of the fuel when compared to the
residual forest biomass. Also the stoichiometry influences the temperature along the
reactor height; the conditions of lower stoichiometry (less oxygen content in the flue
gases) causes increases in the temperature, as observed when comparing periods 2 and
3; this is explained by the higher energy input (fuel feed rate) during operation with
lower stoichiometry. However, that tendency for the influence of stoichiometry was
not observed during operation with fuel sample 2, namely periods 4 and 5, and this can
be explained by the higher moisture content of the fuel mixture during period 5, as
revealed by the significant higher moisture content of the combustion flue gases
(Figure 5.9). In fact, period 5 showed the lower temperature profile in the reactor, and
thus related to the high moisture content of the fuel.
Figure 5.12 - Temperature profile (based on average of temperatures along the time (Fig 5.10))
along the reactor height for the set of experiments analysed before and corresponding to (period
1), 5.6 (period 2), 5.7 (period 3), 5.8 (period 4) and 5.9 (period 5), at several locations along the
reactor height.
5.5.2 Solid products of combustion
During the combustion experiments an increase on the bed height was noticed
and a bed withdraw was necessary. As mentioned the ash content of the fuel samples
prepared is considerable (Table 5.2). The first bed withdrawn shows relatively big

particles of white/gray material mixed with the bed sand. The particles were mixed
each other, not embedded. The bottom ash consistency was not so strength; through
hand pressure it can be easily converted into a white/gray powder. The macroscopic
look of the first bed withdrawn is shown in Figure 5.13.
Figure 5.13 - Bed look after the combustion experiments.
Regarding the fly ash, a big amount of it was found in the exhaust gas duct
(Figure 5.14). Unlike the bottom ash the fly ash looks like a very fine powder.
Figure 5.14 - Fly ash deposition at the exhaust gas duct.
Furthermore an important ash deposition phenomenon was noticed in the

probes located inside the combustor chamber. After the combustion experiments a
crust formation on the tip of the sampling probes (Figure 5.15 right), and also in the
Zirconia cell probe (Figure 5.15 left) was observed. However the crust was very friable
and easily removed and cleaned.
Figure 5.15 - Ash deposition at the Zirconia cell tip and at flue gas sampling probe tip.
Also at the interior of the reactor a fine coat of ash in the inner walls was found;
a picture showing the reactor inside from the top after the combustion tests is
presented in Figure 5.16. It was noticed that the amount of ash adhered to the inner
reactor walls was not constant along the reactor height.
Figure 5.16 - Look at the top of the reactor after the combustion experiments.
In addition to ash deposition along the reactor inner wall, ash deposition along
the fuel discharge duct located inside the reactor was observed (Figure 5.17). That Duct
was removed to analyze the ash deposition, and collection of samples for further
analysis. It was noticed that along the fuel discharge duct the ash deposition also
varied; two regions appear cleaner than the others. The first region starts 0,50 m above
the static bed and a second region is located 1,30 m above the static bed.

Figure 5.17 - Ash deposition along the fuel discharge duct located inside the reactor (Figure 5.3).
The tube side located near the bed surface is at the top of the picture. Total length of the tube is
2 m.
Regarding the particle size distribution of the discharged bottom bed, several
samples were analyzed. A sample of bottom bed withdrawn during combustion of
sewage sludge is shown in Table 5.3.
Table 5.3 – Particle size distribution of the first withdrawn of the bottom bed during combustion
of sewage sludge (fuel sample 1).

[mm] [ kg · kg bed-1]
dp < 250 0,017
250 < dp < 710 0,972
710 < dp < 1,00 0,117
1,00 < dp < 2,00 0,052
dp > 2.00 0,015
A particle size distribution of a bottom bed sample withdrawn during the

combustion of the fuel mixture of biomass and sludge (fuel sample 2) is presented in
Table 5.4.
Table 5.4 – Particle size distribution of a bed sample withdrawn during the combustion of fuel
mixture of biomass and sludge (fuel sample 2).

dp < 250 0,007
250 < dp < 710 0,441
710 < dp < 1,00 0,357
1,00 < dp < 2,00 0,148
dp > 2.00 0,044
A particle size distribution of the bottom bed withdrawn after the combustion
experiments, and during the reactor cleaning activities, is shown in Table 5.5.
Table 5.5 – Particle size distribution of the bottom bed withdrawn after the combustion tests,
and during the reactor cleaning.

dp < 250 0,057
250 > dp < 710 0,875
710 > dp < 1,00 0,026
1,00 > dp < 2,00 0,033
dp > 2,00 0,007
It can be observed that a small percent of the bottom ashes in general present
particle diameters smaller than the bed particle size (around 5%). The bottom ash from
the combustion of fuel sample 1 (sewage sludge) present a difference when compared
with the bottom ash from combustion of fuel sample 2 (residual forest biomass plus
sewage sludge). During the combustion of sewage sludge, most of the bottom ashes
have the same particle size diameter of the bed sand. During the combustion of
biomass plus sewage sludge a considerable percentage of the bottom ash has bigger
particle sizes than the bed particles.
In fact, the analysis of all aspects related to ashes deserves a dedicated study.
The establishment of the possible uses for ashes is extremely important given the
considerable amount produced as a result of the combustion process. As mentioned in
section 2.1.4, the pozzolanic characteristics of the ashes e.g. can be suitable for
incorporation in clinker production. The definition of potential uses for ashes can be a
key factor for an extended use of a fuel based on sewage sludge and based on this,
interesting recycling circuits can be created. A further study of these aspects is
recommended.

6 Concluding remarks
The macroeconomic analysis indicates that the pulp and paper sector represents an
important share in the economic activities in Portugal. Furthermore it was identified
that energy production is getting relevance in the business portfolio of this sector.
Waste management is a major concern in this industry and an increasing interest to

explore the incorporation of wastes into new products has been observed. For the case
of sewage sludge three main trends were identified (vitrification, incorporation in
agriculture, and waste to energy). The state-of-the art revision indicates that the big
constraint to overcome to turn the sewage sludge into new products is its high
moisture content.
A wide range of industrial equipment’s dedicated for sludge drying was identified.
The constraint commonly reported is the difficulty to feed the dryer due to the plastic
and pasty consistency of the sewage sludge. Moreover, the intensive character
regarding energy consumption of those equipment’s suggest that an economically
viable solution passes through the exploration of waste heat sources in order to supply
the energy needs of the drying stage. Additionally, to avoid product degradation and
emissions of dangerous gases during drying, the use of low temperatures are
recommended, therefore low grade waste heat sources could be suitable.
The experiments performed at the tunnel allow the establishment of the main
characteristics of the paper mill sewage sludge drying phenomena. The temperature of
the drying air has a strong influence in moisture reduction; it was identified that
moisture removal is poor using drying air temperatures below 45ºC. For temperatures
between 45ºC and 60ºC a time of 4,5 hours is enough to achieve sludge moisture
contents identified as suitable for combustion (10 – 30 wt%). Moreover noticeable
sewage sludge shrinkage was noticed. The formation of cracks and a thin and porous
crust was also noticed.
Modeling the drying process having into account the inherent characteristics of the
drying process was possible by the use of artificial neural networks approach; a high
correlation coefficient was achieved. The Taguchi method used for the experimental
design of the drying tests was a key factor. The ANN was trained with a relatively
small database when compared with other type of drying models based also in ANN.
Nevertheless the ANN architecture definition was the bottleneck due to the big
amount of different features that can be tested (training algorithms, transfer functions
and number of layers and neurons). However this process could be improved by the
use of a second stage of the Taguchi method for the definition of a set of network
architectures to test. Furthermore it was identified that forecast values, out of the
training database cannot be done with enough accuracy.
In fact, there might be a wide variety of low grade industrial waste heat sources
available to drive the drying process; accordingly the range of temperatures at which it
can be carried out may be diverse. The presented drying kinetic model can give reliable
information about the final moisture content that can be achieved considering several
temperatures and drying parameters.
The theoretical approach regarding combustion of biomass and sewage sludge

allows to conclude that the combustion of sewage sludge can only be done if its
moisture content is below 50 wt%, higher moisture contents produce an endothermic
process. The amount of energy produced is directly related with the share of biomass
and moisture content in the fuel mixture. Increasing the biomass share and decreasing
the moisture content in the fuel mixture enhances the energy production. Due to this
increase in the useful thermal energy, the fuel consumption of the facility decreases. In
addition the fuel consumption is strongly related with the energy losses in the flue gas.
A higher moisture content of the fuel mixture in conjunction with high fuel
consumption rates, increases the losses of sensible and latent heat at the stack;
effectively burn of wet fuels is undesirable and inefficient. This facts show the
importance of a pre-treatment stage (drying) for the fuel as a key factor for the efficient
operation of the energy conversion facilities.
The solid products (fly and bottom ash) resulting from combustion are also an
important issue. A noticeable increase of the ashes production due to the inclusion of
sewage sludge in the fuel mixture was verified; eventually maintenance and
operational issues can appear especially in the flue gas filtration systems. The increased
bottom ash production also can cause continuous bed withdraws to maintain a proper
bed level. The bed sand taken out of the reactor can withdraw significant quantities of
sensible heat; a dedicated study about this fact should be done. The final destination of
the solid products (fly and bottom ash) generated is also a concern. The state-of-the art
revision suggest that the pozzolanic characteristics of the ashes makes them valuable
for its use in other industries; for instance clinker production; therefore interesting
synergies can be established; a further study is recommended.
Regarding the combustion experiments, a uniform fuel feed to the reactor was
identified as a key factor to achieve a stable operation. The results confirm that the
particle size distribution of the fuel samples prepared was correct. The extrusion stage
was very important to improve the handling and to achieve a correct particle size
distribution.
In the case of fuel sample 2, incorporation of the fine particles of the residual forest
biomass in the sewage sludge was effective. This fact suggests that handling of the fuel
during drying can be improved by this way (extrusion and addition of biomass fine
particles). To overcome feeding issues instead of, recirculate part of the dried material
to the feeding port which is a usual practice of the driers manufacturers, the addition
of biomass fine particles can cause the same effect with a significant advantage because
the addition of biomass fine particles produces a significant increase in the heating
value of the final product (fuel). Moreover a drum dryer-mixer powered by waste heat,
with a hot air stream flowing through it appears as the most appropriate option
because it allows the formation of spherical particles besides to allow control the

particle diameter through the drum rotational speed; nevertheless a deep study of such
an equipment is need.
During the five periods of the combustion experiments an average temperature of

800ºC was maintained at the bed level during all the experiments and despite several
hours of operation the fluidization conditions were kept constant. The temperature
profile shows that the highest temperatures were achieved in the freeboard zone,
located above the location of biomass and secondary air addition, indicating that an
important part of the combustion process of the fuel occurs mainly in gaseous phase.
For each experimental condition tested, the CO2 concentration during the
combustion of the fuel samples 1 and 2 was steady. The main reason to reach a steady
condition is related to the uniform fuel feed conditions. Furthermore a low CO
concentration was noticed when compared to the observed during residual forest
biomass combustion even for very low stoichiometry’s. The CO levels never exceed the
emission levels established by the Portuguese law under typical stoichiometry
conditions. Low CO concentration was also observed for combustion of sewage sludge
with low stoichiometry which indicates that the combustion process can be improved
by the use of less combustion air.
During the combustion of fuel sample 2 under typical stoichiometry conditions a

very low CO concentration was observed. This indicates that the combustion efficiency
(fuel oxidation) was high. The fuel sample 2 (50 wt% sewage sludge plus 50 wt%
residual forest biomass) appears as a very good quality fuel, with good transportation
and handling properties, acceptable heating value, and an efficient combustion.
Nevertheless non uniformities in the moisture content of the fuel mixture can strongly
influence the combustion efficiency as noticed during the last period of the combustion
tests. The steady conditions observed for the reactor in conjunction with the fact that
the fluidization conditions were maintained during all the experiments confirms that a
fuel composed by sewage sludge (correctly dried) and residual forest biomass can be
burned with no major problems, being an interesting option as industrial fuel.
The amounts of solid products (fly and bottom ash) generation was significant, and
it was related to the high content of ash in the sewage sludge. The bottom ash particles
appeared individualized regarding the sand bed particles. A detailed study about the
ash chemical composition must be done in order to establish its main characteristics.
The analysis of the particle size distribution shows a noticeable difference in the
particle size of the bottom ashes of these two fuels (fuel sample 1 and 2). The particle
size of bottom ash produced during the sewage sludge combustion is mostly within
the range of the bed particles. The particle size of the bottom ash produced during the
combustion of sewage sludge plus residual forest biomass is shared between sand bed-
particle size diameters and greater than it.
Undoubtedly one of the main factors affecting the feasibility of this type of fuel
passes through the establishment of a safe and reliable destination for the ashes. A
further study of the ash composition is needed. Novel recycling processes can be
enabled by the purchase and sale of this fuel including its ashes; because of that, the
potential uses for it must be investigated.

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8 Appendix
8.1 Appendix 1: MATLAB source code of the mass and energy balance
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%BIOMASS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Proximate Analysis (%) AS RECEIVED BASIS
B_Humidity = 0;
B_Volatile = 0;
B_Ash = 0;
B_FixedCarbon = 0;
%Elemental Analysis in DRY BASIS

B_Carbon = 0;
B_Hydrogen = 0;
B_Nitrogen = 0;
B_Sulfur = 0;
B_Oxygen = 0;
%Oxygen is calculated by difference
%Immediate analysis of biomass in ARB
B_Ww = B_Humidity / 100 ; % [kg moisture / kg biomass arb]

B_Wv = B_Volatile /100 ; % [kg volatile / kg biomass arb]
B_Wa = B_Ash / 100 ; % [kg ash / kg biomass arb]
B_Wfc = B_FixedCarbon /100; % [kg fixed carbon / kg biomass
arb]
% Elemental analysis of Biomass (dry basis)
B_WCr = B_Carbon/100 ; % [kgC / kg biomass db]

B_WHr = B_Hydrogen/100 ; % [kgH / kg biomass db]
B_WNr = B_Nitrogen/100 ; % [kgN / kg biomass db]
B_WSr = B_Sulfur/100 ; % [kgS / kg biomass db]
B_WOr = B_Oxygen/100 ; % [kgO / kg biomass db]
B_Wwr = B_Ww / (1-B_Ww) ; % [kgmoisture / kg biomass db]
B_Wzr = 1 - (B_WCr+ B_WHr+ B_WNr+ B_WSr+ B_WOr);
TotalBiomass = B_WCr+ B_WHr+ B_WNr+ B_WSr+ B_WOr + B_Wzr; %Checking
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%SLUDGE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Proximate Analysis (%) AS RECEIVED BASIS
S_Humidity = 0;
S_Volatile = 0;
S_Ash = 0;
S_FixedCarbon = 0;
%Elemental Analysis in DRY BASIS

S_Carbon = 0;
S_Hydrogen = 0;
S_Nitrogen = 0;
S_Sulfur = 0;
S_Oxygen = 0;
%Oxygen is calculated by difference
%Immediate analysis of Sludge in ARB
S_Ww = S_Humidity / 100 ; % [kg moisture / kg sludge arb]

S_Wv = S_Volatile /100 ; % [kg volatile / kg sludge arb]
S_Wa = S_Ash / 100 ; % [kg ash / kg sludge arb]
S_Wfc = S_FixedCarbon /100 ; % [kg fixed carbon / kg sludge arb]
% Elemental analysis of Sludge (dry basis)
S_WCr = S_Carbon/100 ; % [kgC / kg sludge db]

S_WHr = S_Hydrogen/100 ; % [kgH / kg sludge db]
S_WNr = S_Nitrogen/100 ; % [kgN / kg sludge db]
S_WSr = S_Sulfur/100 ; % [kgS / kg sludge db]
S_WOr = S_Oxygen/100 ; % [kgO / kg sludge db]
S_Wwr = S_Ww / (1-S_Ww) ; % [kgmoisture / kg sludge db]
S_Wzr = 1 - (S_WCr + S_WHr + S_WNr + S_WSr + S_WOr);
TotalSludge = S_WCr + S_WHr + S_WNr + S_WSr + S_WOr + S_Wzr; %Checking
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% FUEL FRACTIONS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%for i = 0:100 "only when for loop is used

to shift the fuel percentages"
%Mass_fraction_of_biomass = (i+1)/100 "only when for loop is used

to shift the fuel percentages"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Mass_fraction_of_biomass = 0.60
Mass_fraction_of_sludge = (1- Mass_fraction_of_biomass)
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%FUEL MIXTURE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Immediate analysis of FINAL FUEL MIXTURE in ARB
F_Ww = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_Ww + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_Ww ; % [kg moisture / kg fuel arb]
F_Wv = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_Wv + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_Wv ; % [kg volatile / kg fuel arb]
F_Wa = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_Wa + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_Wa ; % [kg ash / kg fuel arb]
F_Wfc = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_Wfc+ Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_Wfc ; % [kg fixed carbon / kg fuel arb]
% Elemental analysis of FUEL MIXTURE (dry basis)
F_WCr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_WCr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_WCr ; % [kgC / kg fuel db]
F_WHr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_WHr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *
S_WHr ; % [kgH / kg fuel db]
F_WNr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_WNr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *
S_WNr ; % [kgN / kg fuel db]

F_WSr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_WSr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_WSr ; % [kgS / kg fuel db]
F_WOr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_WOr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_WOr ; % [kgO / kg fuel db]
F_Wwr = F_Ww / (1-F_Ww); % [kg moisture / kg fuel db]
F_Wzr = Mass_fraction_of_biomass * B_Wzr + Mass_fraction_of_sludge *

S_Wzr;
TotalFuel = F_WCr + F_WHr + F_WNr + F_WSr + F_WOr + F_Wzr

;%Checking
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%HIGHER HEATING VALUE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
HHV = (34.91*F_WCr) + (117.83*F_WHr) + (10.05*F_WSr)- (10.34*F_WOr) -

(1.51*F_WNr) - (2.11*F_Wzr); % [MJ / kg fuel] "Channiwala SA,
Parikh, J Fuel 2002;81:1051"
%HHV = 10^3*((33.77*F_WCr)+(143.8*(F_WHr-(F_WOr/8)))+ (9.42*F_WSr)); %

[kJ /kg fuel db] "Dulong formula"
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%LOWER HEATING VALUE%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
h_fg = 2440 ; % [kJ / kg H2O]

%Latent Heat of water vaporization @25ºC
mW = F_WHr * (18/2); % [kg H2O / kg fuel db]

% Water mass on fuel
LHV = (HHV)-((h_fg/10^3)*mW); % [kJ / kg fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%STOICHIOMETRY CALCULATIONS%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Molecular mass of Chemical Elements
MC = 12; % [ kg C / kmol C ]
MH = 1 ; % [ kg H / kmol H ]
MN = 14; % [ kg N / kmol N ]
MS = 32; % [ kg S / kmol S ]
MO = 16; % [ kg O / kmol O ]
% Chemicals molecular mass
MO2 = 32; % [kg O2 / kmol O2]

MN2 = 28; % [kg N2 / kmol N2]
MH2O= 18; % [kg H2O / kmol H2O]
MH2 = 2 ; % [kg H2 / kmol H2]
% Stoichiometric coefficients
YC = 1 ; %
YH = 0.5 ; %
YS = 1 ; %
YN = 0 ; %
% Stoichiometric Oxygen
Ws_kmol = YC*(F_WCr/MC) + YH*(F_WHr/MH2) + YS*(F_WSr/MS)-(F_WOr/MO2);

%[kmol O2 / kg fuel db)
Ws_kg = MO2 * Ws_kmol ;

%[kg O2 / kg fuel db)
% Stoichiometric Air
%Air mixture ratio

Wva = 0.010; % [kg H2O / kg dry air]
% from psychometric diagram
Wsa = Ws_Kg * (1+ (3.76*(MN2/MO2))+7.66*Wva*(MH2O/MO2)); % [kg

stoichiometric air / kg fuel db]
% Air excess
z = 0.5; % percentage
% Actual Oxygen
Wa = (1+z)*Ws_kg; % [kg O2 actual / kg fuel db]
% Actual Air
WaA = (1+z)*Wsa; % [kg actual air / kg fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% MASS BALANCE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Solid phase combustion products (fly ash + bottom ash) & unburned
carbon
%Efficiency of carbon combustion
Eff_cc = 1; % percentage
Wc_unburned = (1- Eff_cc)* F_WCr; % [kgC unburned / kg fuel db]
%Solid Products quantity (organic + inorganic)
W_c_z = Wc_unburned + F_Wzr; % [kg solid products / kg fuel

db] bottom + fly ash
Fly_ash_fraction = 0.20; % assumed value ----> dependent

of the combustion technology
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Fly Ash Production%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Estimations %
Uc_percentage = 0.10; %I will assume 10% of solid
products as unburned carbon
Ash_percentage= 1- Uc_percentage; %I will assume 90% of solid

products as ashes

Wvr = W_c_z * Fly_ash_fraction; % [kg of

fly ash / kg fuel db]
wcv = Wc_unburned * (Uc_percentage/Wvr); % [kg of

carbon / kg of combustion flying products]
wzv = 1 - wcv; % [kg of

ashes / kg of combustion flying products]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Bottom Ash Production %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Wer = W_c_z - Wvr; % [kg of

bottom ash / kg fuel db]
wce = (Wc_unburned*(1-wcv))/ Wer; % [kg of

carbon / kg of combustion bottom products]
wze = 1 - wce; % [kg of

ashes / kg of combustion bottom products]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% WET GASES PRODUCTION DURING THE COMBUSTION PROCESS (PTN conditions)%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Complete combustion ----> absence of NO, CO, H2, NO
nCO2 = (F_WCr/MC) - (( wcv*Wvr)*(wce*Wer))/MC

; %[kmol CO2 /kg fuel db]
nH2O = (F_WHr/2) + (F_Wwr/18) + (Wa/MO2)* Wva * 7.66

; %[kmol H2O /kg fuel db]
nN2 = F_WNr/MN2 + ((Wa/MO2)*(3.76))

; %[kmol N2 /kg fuel db]
nSO2 = F_WSr/MS
; %[kmol SO2 /kg fuel db]
nO2 = ((F_WOr/32) + ((0.5*F_Wwr)/18) + (Wa/32)*(1+0.5*Wva*7.66))-

nCO2-(nH2O/2)-nSO2
; %[kmol O2 /kg fuel db]
%Dry Gases
G_t_s = (nCO2 + nN2 + nSO2 + nO2) - nH2O
; % [kmol dry gases / kg fuel db]
% Ashes
W_Z_r = wzv*Wvr+wze*Wer
; % [kg ash / kg fuel db]
% end "only when for loop is used to shift the fuel percentages
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ENERGY BALANCE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% REACTANTS %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Sensible heat
HS_reactives = 0; % difference between ambient temperature and

reactives temperature is 0, both at 25ºC
% Latent heat
HL_reactives = F_Wwr * h_fg * -1000; % [J / kg fuel db]
% Heat from reaction
HR_reactives = LHV * 10^6; % [J / kg fuel db]
%Total
H_reactives = HS_reactives + HL_reactives + HR_reactives; % [J / kg

fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% PRODUCTS %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Additional data
% Specific heat of different chemicals @ 423.15 K
cp_CO2 = 1092.75; % [J / kgCO2*K]

cp_H2O = 1863; % [J / kgH2O*K]
cp_O2 = 921; % [J / kgO2*K]
cp_N2 = 1038.75; % [J / kgN2*K]
cp_SO2 = 1100; % [J / kgSO2*K]
cp_c = 800; % [J / kgC*K]
cp_z = 900; % [J / kgZ*K]
PCI_carbono_25C = 3.20*10^7; % [J / kg carbon]
% Molar mass of different chemicals
MCO2 = 44; % [kg CO2 / kmol CO2]

MSO2 = 64; % [kg SO2 / kmol SO2]
% Temperatures
Products_temp = 423.15; % [K]

Ambient_temp = 298.15; % [K]
% Sensible heat from products
HS_products =
(((nCO2*MCO2*cp_CO2)+(nH2O*MH2O*cp_H2O)+(nO2*MO2*cp_O2)+(nN2*MN2*cp_N2
)+(nSO2*MSO2*cp_SO2))+((wzv*Wvr+wze*Wer)*cp_z)+
((wcv*Wvr+wce*Wer)*cp_c))*(Products_temp-Ambient_temp); % [J/kg fuel
db]

% Latent heat from products
HL_products = 0; %avoid effluents condensation
% Heat from reaction
HR_products = ((wcv*Wvr + wce*Wer)*cp_c)*PCI_carbono_25C; % [J/kg

fuel db]
% Total
H_products = HS_products + HL_products + HR_products; % [J/kg

fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% ENERGY LOST %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
H_lost = 0.1 * H_reactives; % [J/kg

fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% USEFUL ENERGY %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
H_useful = H_reactives - H_lost - H_products ; % [J/kg

fuel db]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% 50 MWth FACILITY %
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Fuel feed rate
F_frate = 50 / (H_useful/10^6) ; % [kg fuel db / s]
% Fuel feed rate ARB(as received basis)
F_rate_ar = F_frate + F_Wwr ; % [kg fuel arb / s]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% POWER TO DRY SLUDGE %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% DRYER THERMAL POWER %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Enthalpy of water vaporization
H_vap = 2354 ; % [kJ / kg water] @ 60ºC / 0.042 bar
% For loop for final moisture
for j = 10:75
% Power to remove water
M_obj = j/100;
Sludge_rate = F_rate_ar * Mass_fraction_of_sludge; % [kg Sludge

arb / s]
Actual_moisture_content(j) = Sludge_rate * S_Ww; % [ kg water /

s]
Final_moisture_content(j) = Sludge_rate * M_obj; % [ kg water /

s]
Water_to_remove(j) = Actual_moisture_content(j) -
Final_moisture_content(j); % [kg water / s]
Power_1(j) = (Water_to_remove(j) * H_vap)/10^3; %[MW]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% SENSIBLE HEAT ADDED TO DRY MATTER %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Power added to dry matter
Process_temp = 303; % ºK
Cp_dried_sludge = 1.516 ; % [kJ / kg*K] Arlabosse et al., 2005
Power_2(j) = ((Sludge_rate*(1-
M_obj))*(Cp_dried_sludge)*(Process_temp-0))/10^3; % [MW]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% DRYER LOSSES %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
Losses = 0.4; % 4% of losses are assumed in the dryer
Dryer_losses(j) = (Power_1(j) + Power_2(j)) * 0.4 ; % [MW]
Power_2_dry(j) = Dryer_losses(j) + Power_1(j) + Power_2(j) % [MW]
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Sensible Heat Availability in effluents stream%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
cp_CO2_out = 960.057; % [J / kgCO2*K] @ 150ºC (A.6

interpolation Incropera)
cp_O2_out = 948.48; % [J / kgO2*K] @ 150ºC
cp_N2_out = 1047.31; % [J / kgN2*K] @ 150ºC
cp_SO2_out = 1100; % [J / kgSO2*K] @ 800ºC
Eff_temp = 423.15 % [K] @150 ºC after heat recovery devices
HS_products_dry(i) = HS_products(i) = (((nCO2(i)*(1/1-

nH2O(i)))*MCO2*cp_CO2_out)+((nO2(i)*(1/1-
nH2O(i)))*MO2*cp_O2_out)+((nN2(i)*(1/1-
nH2O(i)))*MN2*cp_N2_out)+((nSO2(i)*(1/1-
nH2O(i)))*MSO2*cp_SO2_out))*(Eff_temp-Ambient_temp); % [J/kg fuel db]
Power_effluent_drygases(i) = (HS_products_dry(i) * F_frate(i))/10^6 ;

%[MW]

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
%Latent Heat Availability in effluents stream%
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
% Heat of vaporization
Hfg = 2123 ; % [kJ/kg] @ 150ºC/423.15 ~ 400 K
Latent_heat_effluent(i) = (Hfg * (nH2O(i)*MH2O) * F_frate(i) )/10^3

% [MW]
end
8.2 Appendix 2: Results of the drying experiments at the tunnel under the
Taguchi methods
Figure 8.1 - Drying kinetic of the sludge sample under the Taguchi methods (1).




8.3 Appendix 3: MATLAB source code of the artificial neural network

model
clear all
%importing data
%must have a .xls file with sheets: input and target in the same
directory
ANN=xlsread('Database1.xls','Sheet1')';
input=ANN([1:5],:);
target=ANN( 6,:);
t=size(input)
to=size(target)
t=t(2);
% ANN architecture definition
rna_1=newff(input,target,[4],{'tansig'},'trainbr');
%
rna_1.inputs{1}.processFcns = {'fixunknowns','mapminmax','mapstd'};
%train network
rna_1.performFcn = 'msereg';
rna_1.performParam.ratio = 0.5;
rna_1.trainParam.show = 5;
rna_1.trainParam.epochs = 300;
rna_1.trainParam.goal = 1e-5;
[rna_1,tr]=train(rna_1,input,target);
plotperform(tr)
% For loop for generating the drying kinetic curve.
time_drying = i
Hfinal= [1:180]
j=0
for i = linspace(0,1,180)
j= j+1
test = [i 0.8836 0.8018 0.4320 0.9868]'; %

vel;temp;Habs_ar;Hinicial
G = sim(rna_1,test);
Hfinal(j)= G;
end
plot(Hfinal)

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Universidade de Aveiro Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica

Mario Alejandro SEWAGE SLUDGE DRYING AND COMBUSTION

Mario Alejandro SECAGEM E COMBUSTAO DE LAMAS BIOLÓGICAS

Dissertação apresentada à Universidade de Aveiro para cumprimento dos

This work was carried out within the

This work was done in the scope of

Presidente Professor Doutor Nelson Amadeu Dias Martins

Vogais Professor Doutor Luís António da Cruz Tarelho

Professor Doutor Mário Manuel Gonçalves da Costa

To my parents for freedom as heritage. To my brother Adrian and my sister

4 Drying experiments ...................................................................................................................................................... 43

4.2.2.6.1 Oven .............................................................................................................................................................................. 48

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica ii

Universidade de Aveiro iii

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica iv

AISI American Iron and Steel Institute

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica vi

Universidade de Aveiro vii

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica viii

MA Air molecular mass [kg·kmol-1]

niR Number of moles of gas species i as effluent [kmoli·kgfueldb-1]

wOF Oxygen content in the fuel dry basis [kgO·kgF-1]

Ys,C Stoichiometric coefficient for Carbon [kmolO2·kmolC-1]

Ys,j Stoichiometric consumption of element j [mol·mol-1]

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica x

1.1 Pulp and Paper industry

Clearly it is noticed a healthy industry with a strong tendency to growth in terms of

1.1.1 Paper pulp production process

In order to understand the source where the sewage sludge is produced it is

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 2

The chemical dissolution process is self-sufficient in terms of energy due to the

1.1.1.1 Chemical digestion

As a resume the stages of the kraft method are:

1.1.1.1.1 Sewage sludge produced by the pulp and paper industry

As referred in section 1.1.1.1 there is a parallel process to the pulp production

The degree of primary treatment is achieved by several physical processes;

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 4

To complete the secondary treatment, the effluent from the clarifier is

1.2 Main Objectives

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 6

2 Sewage sludge treatment in the pulp and paper industry

Wastes Specific production [kg · tAD-1]

As mentioned despite the increase of technology and electronic communications,

A meaningful discussion of recycling requires a common vocabulary, based on

2.1 Options for sewage sludge treatment

The main purpose of a waste treatment technique is the inertization of the

The sewage sludge incorporation as raw material in the production of

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 8

These results shows the effective implementation of cellulosic sewage sludge in

2.1.2 Recycling in agriculture

2.1.3 Landfill disposal

2.1.4 Waste to energy

Incineration in essence is a concept that comprises the wastes combustion with

Advantages of incineration as a waste treatment technique, in general terms can

The case of sludge incorporation as fuel for clinker production is interesting,

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 10

2.1.4.1 Co – combustion of sewage sludge in fluidized bed reactor

Basically, the secondary sludge due to its relative stability regarding to

Regarding to solid products of combustion is well known that the sludge

Departamento de Engenharia Mecânica 12

tendency due to the decrease in combustion temperature caused by a large amount of

An efficient combustion is important to prevent undesirable effluents, when

2.2 Sewage sludge drying